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LITTLE JOAN 





LITTLE JOAN 


by 

John Strange Winter 

AUTHOR OF FOOTLES' BABY;' 

HEART AND SWORD," BLAZE OF GLORY;' 
MARTY," ETC. 




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PHILADELPHIA & 

LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT 

COMPANY 

1903 



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Copyright, 1903 
By J. B. Lippincott Company 

Published October^ ^9^3 



Electrotjped and Printed by 
J. B. Lippincott Company^ Philadelphia^ U. S.A. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. THE DELAMERES UP THE RIVER 7 

II. JOAN 15 

III. NOT A HITCH 23 

IV. LITTLE GIRL 32 

V. THE END OF THE FIRST PHASE 41 

VI. CHANGE OF QUARTERS 49 

VII. A BREAK IN THE CHAIN 57 

VIII. A BLACK TIME 66 

IX. WILL IT BE YEARS? 75 

X. CRUEL TO BE KIND 83 

XL GONE AWAY 91 

XII. A MIGHTY ITEM 99 

XIII. A VERY LONG GOOD-BYE 107 

XIV. THE BURDEN OF LIFE 115 

XV. INTO THE WORLD 122 

XVI. ROBERT MASTERS 130 

XVII. FRIENDSHIP 138 

XVIII. REAL FRIENDS 146 

XIX. BETWEEN THE LINES 155 

XX. COMING HOME ,... 163 

XXI. THE NEW LORD MORESBY 171 

XXIL TEN MINUTES' CHAT 179 

XXIII. AGGIE’S SUSPICIONS 187 

XXIV. CONFIRMATION 195 

XXV. A BOLD RESOLVE 203 

XXVI. THE DIFFICULTY OF LIFE 212 

XXVII. IF YOU SHOULD CALL ME 220 

XXVIII. THE DAYS MAY COME 228 


5 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIX. THE DAYS MAY GO 237 

XXX. NO USE 245 

XXXI. ROBERT DELAMERE'S DOUBTS 252 

XXXII. PLENTY OF TIME 259 

XXXIII. DAVID MOLYNEUX 267 

XXXIV. A DUMPING-GROUND 275 

XXXV. A SEAL 283 

XXXVI. SOMEWHAT OF A SHOCK TO LORD MORESBY 292 

XXXVII. " I THOUGHT ” 300 

XXXVIII. ROBERT MASTERS GRASPS THE TRUTH 310 

XXXIX. A PRETTY FIX 319 

XL. THE ONLY WAY OUT 327 


6 


LITTLE JOAN 


CHAPTER I ' 

The Delameres up the River 
OBODY quite knew why everyone made a distinc- 



tion between the Delamere sisters. There were 


five of them, — yes, five Miss Delameres. There was Miss 
Maud, who was engaged to Blake of the Black Horse; 
and there was Miss Norah, who was a learned young 
woman, and could wear a hood if she liked; there was 
Miss Agnes, who was churchy; and Miss Violet, who 
was the beauty of the family and posed as such; and 
then there was little Joan. 

It might be that Joan was physically very different to 
her four sisters. Maud and Norah, Agnes and Violet 
were all tall, fine-grown young women, long of limb, 
small of waist, blue-eyed, auburn-haired, with each of 
them a wide-smiling mouth which was the embodiment 
of good nature and good health. Little Joan, who came 
midway in the quintette, was the strongest possible con- 
trast to her sisters. She was quite a tiny little woman, 
with a face that would have been purely Madonna had it 
not been for a decided upward tendency at the end of 
the nose. Her eyes were grey and serene, her smile was 


7 


LITTLE JOAN 


satisfying, her voice comforting, her ways tranquil and 
unirritating, and her nature as clear as crystal. 

“You know I am much more dignified than any of 
you,” she said once to her sisters. “ You are always lark- 
ing about, always with something on, always pressing the 
wine of life to the dregs, so to speak, and I am an un- 
eventful, tranquil person. Yet they call you Miss Maud, 
Miss Violet, and so on, and they call me ‘ Joan,’ the first 
time they ever set eyes upon me; and when they’ve 
known me quite a short time they call me ‘ little Joan.’ 
I can’t understand it.” 

“ Well, you are such a mite,” said Maudie, looking 
down from her superior height and over her superior 
breadth of shoulder at her sister. 

Good stuff is wrapped in little bundles,” said Joan, 
coolly. 

“ You might have left somebody else to say that,” re- 
marked Agnes. 

“ Yes, I might,” answered Joan, quickly. “ I should 
have had to wait, shouldn’t I ?” 

And then the five of them laughed as only girls who 
are thoroughly happy and thoroughly in accord with each 
other ever can, or at least ever do, laugh. 

Now, the Delameres lived in old Blankhampton. It 
occurs to me that I haven’t written a story about Blank- 
hampton for a long time, so, as the schoolboys say, here 
goes as regards the story of the Delameres. 

The branch of the Delamere family to which I am 
about particularly to draw your notice is a different 

8 


THE DELAMERES UP THE RIVER 


branch to that portion of it to which I have already intro- 
duced my readers. Some of you may remember that 
there was one Freddy Delamere, who was much enam- 
oured in his extreme youth of a young woman who long 
ago shook the dust of Blankhampton from off her feet, 
not with any intention of changing her venue, but simply 
and solely because she married a man who lived in an- 
other place than the old city which clusters round the 
grand old Cathedral, which we who love the place are 
wont to call the Parish. 

The Delameres were a Blankhampton family of very 
old standing. There are not many families in Blank- 
hampton which can make a similar boast; but that has 
nothing to do with the story. The Frampton Delameres 
was the branch to which Freddy belonged ; the Tendring 
Delameres were some second cousins, who lived about 
five miles away and who had almost forgotten that they 
were old Cathedral people; and the Delameres up the 
river were first cousins to the Frampton Delameres, but 
nobody who did not know the kinship would have taken 
them for branches off the same tree, for the Frampton 
Delameres had taken after a podgy mother, and the 
Delameres up the river had taken after an auburn-haired 
grandmother. 

Mr. Delamere up the river was a lawyer. He held 
various appointments of more or less legal weight in the 
old city. He was Clerk to the Justices, he was also Clerk 
to the Vestry; he had an appointment in the Chapter, 
and he was solicitor to one of the great endowed schools 

9 


LITTLE JOAN 


at which the rising youth of Blankhampton receive edu- 
cation. Consequently, although there were five Miss 
Delameres, to say nothing of three boys in various parts 
of the world, one in his father’s office quickly qualifying 
for a partnership, and with a distinct view of taking on 
in due course his father’s appointments ; one far away in 
Australia, making railways and acquiring information of 
a varied character which would surely bring him in a 
fortune in days to come ; and one in an infantry regiment, 
which, at the time my story opens, was grilling under 
an Eastern sky ; consequently, I say, although there were 
five Miss Delameres, they had never known what it was 
to be denied of the reasonable luxuries suitable to their 
age and position. 

Of course I need not tell you that up the river” was 
not the postal address of the family, but they lived about 
half a mile beyond the outskirts of the old city, just near 
the bend of the river where the public walk was, where 
the trees hang down to the water’s edge, and others 
stretched great, protecting arms aloft to heaven; where 
villas ruled high in price and gardens were suCh^ as would^ 
have driven a denizen of London wild with envy. Afid 
the house which was occupied by the Delameres was, I 
think, the prettiest of any. It went by the name of 
“ Riverside,” and the Delameres had a boat-house with a 
dinghy, several skiffs, and a couple of canoes, on which 
•they were accustomed to disport themselves on the broad 
surface of the smooth, shining river. 

There was a very curious strain in old Blankhampton. 


10 


THE DELAMERES UP THE RIVER 


Perhaps it is shared by other towns whose population runs 
in like proportion, but it has never been my lot to know 
another cathedral town which had quite the same charac- 
teristics as old Blankhampton. Not for worlds would 
the general run of people have spoken of the Delameres 
as the “ Delameres of Riverside/' Not a bit of it. When 
they had left the roomy old house standing back in a 
court off St. Thomas’s Street, where Delamere after Dela- 
mere had sat for generations gathering up large fees and 
little fees, and had bloomed forth into a suburban estab- 
lishment, they had come to be called Delameres up the 
river,” and I think “ Delameres up the river” they will 
remain until the end of time. ^ 

At the actual opening of my story the household at 
Riverside was in an unwonted state of excitement. The 
time was sweet September, an unusually golden month 
following on a somewhat cold and cheerless August. The 
time was rapidly approaching for the wedding of Maudie 
Delamere with Blake of the Black Horse. It was indeed 
fixed for the fifteenth of the month, and being the first 
break in the family at Riverside, there was much gather- 
ing of the clans, and every branch of the Delamere family 
seemed to have set itself to vie with all the other branches 
in the warmth of its expressions of affection and in the 
richness of its bridal offerings. Naturally, the first daugh- 
ter to be married of such a man as Robert Delamere, one 
who held so many public appointments and exercised such 
a judicious sway over the fortunes of so large a portion 
of the city, — I say naturally she would be the recipient 


I 


LITTLE JOAN 


of many tokens of the esteem in which her father was 
held, and parcel after parcel was left at Riverside, until 
the family had almost become satiated with gifts. 

How you can be expected to cart all these things 
about at the tail of the Black Horse is beyond my com- 
prehension,’^ said Agnes Delamere, as she and Maudie un- 
packed the fifth elaborately embroidered screen which 
had reached her. 

We can’t attempt to cart them about,” cried Maudie. 

No,” said Agnes. “ Well, you can give them away 
for wedding-presents, that’s one comfort. Get mother 
to give you a room for everything you don’t want, and 
have a list of the things. Have them all packed up in 
dust-sheets or newspapers, to keep them fresh, and when 
you want to send a wedding-present, merely write home 
and give your instructions. If it’s somebody you don’t 
care for, send them a fat cushion or a book-slide, — you’ve 
got fifteen, I think, — and if it’s somebody you do care for, 
you could send them a screen. Nobody will know. Your 
ways won’t be Blankhampton ways; you’ll be on the 
tramp for the rest of your life.” 

“ I hope not,” cried Maudie ; “ only till Bill gets the 
regiment.” 

“ And Bill hasn’t even got his troop ! Well, you’ll like 
it. You were always a peripatetic young party. Hullo, 
here’s Joan ! Well, Joan, what have you got there?” 

Another parcel,” said Joan. She carried a fat parcel 
under her left arm, a couple of small ones in her left 
hand, and a soft bulgy packet before her. 


12 


THE DELAMERES UP THE RIVER 

‘‘ I don’t call that another parcel. I call it some par- 
cels.” 

“Yes, yes,” and Joan dumped them down upon the 
table. “ These two came by post and are registered. I 
think they are jewellery.” 

“ Oh, let’s open this first. Stick that fat, podgy cushion 
thing on one side ; it will do afterwards,” said the bride- 
elect with irreverent ingratitude. “ Now, let’s see who 
this is from. Oh — h! Agnes! Joan! Oh — ^h! How 
lovely! How lovely!” and she held at arm’s length a 
lovely diamond star. “ Isn’t it divine — isn’t it ?” 

“ Who is it from ?” cried Agnes. 

“ Got the card in your hand,” exclaimed Joan. 

“ What does it matter who it’s from ? Look at the light 
on it!” 

“ Give me the card,” cried Joan, wresting it deftly 
from between her sister’s clutching fingers. “ Mr. Oswald 
Mainwaring.” 

“ Why, that’s the best man,” cried Agnes. 

“ Oh, of course. What a present to send !” exclaimed 
Joan with admiration. 

“ Oh, well, he’s Bill’s best friend,” said Maudie. “ He’s 
going to be Bill’s best man. They are chums — ^pals.” 

“ Still, that star is worth ” 

“Well, I can’t help it. It’s a lovely and gorgeous 
star, and I shall wear it on my wedding-day ; you see if I 
don’t.” 

“ My dear,” said Agnes, “ I wasn’t finding any fault 
with the quality of the star, — it’s quite beautiful, — ^but 

13 


LITTLE JOAN 


it is an unusually beautiful gift for a best man, even if 
he is the bridegroom’s best pal. He must be very rich.” 

Oh, rolling in money,” supplemented Joan; “ as rich 
as little Dickey.” ^ 

“ Joan,” cried Agnes, laughing, ‘ wou lovej money. 

No, you are quite wrong. I don t love money stt alK 
I like what money brings. Anyone who isn’t a fool does 
that. But money for money’s sake has no attract 


And you don’t m^n to marry little Dickey , 

No,” said Joan, 'O don’t think I mean to/marry^ttlS 
(jDickey.^ 

** Apart from little Dickey,” put in the bride^et^t, “ I 
fancy that Bill told me that Mr. Mainwaring was rather 
poor than otherwise, — I have a distinct iniipression that 
way, — so don’t let any of you girls get too much smit- 
ten.” 

Is he good-looking ?” asked Agne^. 

I don’t think he’s good-looking. ’*ffe’s one ( of the 
adorable ugly kind ; just the kind of man that a tiy tot, 
like Joan would fall head over ears in love witJvTMind 

you don’t, Joan, or little Dickey ” \ 

I wouldn’t marry little Dickey,” said Joahr-solemnly, 
not if he was smeared all over in honey and rolled in 
diamonds.” 


14 


CHAPTER II 



I T is astonishing how quickly the days go by when one 
is preparing for any event. I think the days that 
come immediately before a wedding slip by with a rapid- 
ity which is more marked than before any other event. 
To the family at Riverside the hours seemed positively to 
fly at lightning speed. There was so much to do, so many 
guests to be arranged for, so many people coming to stay, 
so many presents to inspect and acknowledge, and then 
to set out in tempting array for the day of the cere- 
mony. 

At such times, however, things get scrambled through 
somehow, and when the day previous to that of the wed- 
ding arrived the Delameres up the river felt that they were 
as much forward with their preparations as any family 
who had ever had a wedding in this world. The chief 
events of that day were the arrival in Blankhampton of 
the groom and his best man, and a large dinner which 
was to be given at Riverside that evening. 

Now, it happened that Maudie Delamere had not made 
the acquaintance of her bridegroom in her native city. It 
was years since the Black Horse had been quartered in 
the cavalry barracks which were but a stone^s throw from 
Riverside. No, Maudie Delamere and Bill Blake had met 

15 


LITTLE JOAN 


in a pleasant country house a couple of hundred miles 
away from the old city; had met and fallen in love, as 
young people ought to do, at first sight. Blake was 
wealthy, and Maudie would not go to her bridegroom 
quite empty-handed ; so it was, as the lady in whose house 
the affair had come off had truly said, quite a providential 
arrangement. 

It happened then that the Delamere girls were, with 
the exception of Blake himself, quite unacquainted with 
the officers of the Black Horse, and therefore, when the 
two young men arrived during the course of the after- 
noon, having established themselves at the Station Hotel, 
the one was an utter stranger, nobody of the Delamere 
family having seen him excepting Maudie herself, who 
had the previous month paid a short visit to one of the 
married ladies in the regiment. 

When the two young men arrived at Riverside, the en- 
tire family were gathered together in the drawing-room. 
It was a long, low room, lighted by five windows over- 
looking the lawn which led down to the river. A wide, 
glass-covered veranda ran all along that side of the house. 
Two of the windows stood wide open to the soft autumn 
air ; the parterres were still gay with flowers ; the roses 
still bloomed about the pillars which supported the roof 
of the veranda. 

It often happens that the actual function of a wedding 
is a damp and dismal ceremony, but I think there is 
always an air of jollity about the before and after. Cer- 
tainly the drawing-room at Riverside was not suggestive 

i6 


JOAN 


of there being anything sad or dreary in the wind, and in 
a moment Bill Blake was, as it were, swallowed up by a 
bevy of sisters. 

For a moment Mr. Mainwaring stood irresolute; then 
Mrs. Delamere came to the rescue. “ Of course you are 
Mr. Mainwaring,’’ she said, holding out a gracious hand 
and drawing him towards the fire. “ You mustn’t take 
any notice of these feather-headed young creatures, all 
excited at having a wedding on hand. Come and sit here 
by me, and I’ll give you some fresh tea. It, you see, has 
followed hard on your heels. Winifred, my dear,” she 
said to a pretty young girl who was sitting near to the 
tea-table, let me introduce Mr. Mainwaring to you. This 
is one of the bridesmaids of to-morrow — Miss Winifred 
Marchmont.” 

So Mainwaring straightway sat down and started to 
make himself agreeable with that singular air of concen- 
tration which belongs to the soldier more than to any 
other man on earth. Miss Marchmont was young and 
pretty; she was also game for as good a time at the 
approaching festivities as could well be squeezed out of 
them ; so she favoured the dragoon with the brightest of 
smiles, and drew her skirts a little on one side so that he 
might seat himself in comfort. 

Are you quite a stranger ?” she began. 

Quite. I have never seen any of the family excepting 
the bride, and I only saw her once,” he replied. 

What a terribly^onerous position for you ! Well, you 
see that girl in the pink blouse, tall, and very like the 

n 


2 


LITTLE JOAN 


bride herself? She’s the chief bridesmaid, and therefore 
she will be your fate to-morrow.” 

Mainwaring looked up, scanning the five Delamere 
sisters with good-naturedly critical eyes; saw that four 
were alike, — tall, auburn-haired, and bonny, — and that 
the fifth girl was of a totally different type. 

“ I suppose that little lady in the grey gown is not a 
Delamere?” he said. 

Indeed she is,” said Miss Marchmont. “ That is little 
Joan.” 

‘'Little Joan?” echoed Mr. Mainwaring. “Yes — ^the 
name suits her.” 

“Doesn’t it? I always think of Joan as some bright- 
eyed bird. Have you ever held a swallow in your hand 
and seen that smooth, sleek head, with the quick, half- 
nervous eye and the general air of neat and tiny elegance ? 
It is true that the name of Joan suits her, but I always 
thought she ought to have been called Hirondelle.” 

He laughed at the quaint conceit, and helped himself 
to a piece of hot cake from the dish which Mrs. Delamere 
handed to him at that moment. Just then the five sisters 
came to a realization of the fact that there was a stranger 
in the room, and the bride came hurriedly across towards 
them. 

“ Oh, Mr. Mainwaring,” she said, “ what did you think 
of us? You must have thought us the most mannerless 
crew in the world!” 

“ I thought you were a preoccupied crew,” he said, get- 
ting up and smiling down upon her. 

i8 


JOAN 


“ Oh, but we are not really. I don’t know what pos- 
sessed us. It’s the infectious gaiety of Bill’s demeanour. 
It’s all your fault, Bill, and you know it. Now, you must 
let me make you known to my sisters.” And then she in- 
troduced them one after another, ending up with “ And 
this is the one we call ^ little Joan’.” 

My sisters,” said little Joan, are all so long and 
gawky that they can’t forgive me for being what you 
may call a comfortable pocket edition. So they always 
label me ‘ little Joan’ to everybody. It would be rather 
hard if it didn’t recoil on their own heads. Let me give 
you some more tea, Mr. Mainwaring, and do sit down 
again and go on talking to Winifred.” 

The four auburn-haired girls drifted off to various 
parts of the room, for other people came in just then and 
they were needed elsewhere than with the group by the 
tea-table. So Mainwaring sat down again to continue 
his conversation with Winifred Marchmont, but his eye 
wandered here and there over the room as little Joan flit- 
ted from one room to another. Then, by common consent, 
they all spread out into the sunlit gardens, some wander- 
ing down to the terrace overlooking the river walk, some 
going to the croquet lawn, and the bride and groom steal- 
ing away down a shrubbery which lay on the other side 
of the house. 

Old chap,” said Mainwaring to Bill Blake, as they 
walked away towards the town, you haven’t done badly, 
for yourself at all.” 

** Glad you think so, old fellow,” said Billy, looking 
19 


LITTLE JOAN 

hard in front of him. You — er — you admire my 

choice ?” 

“ Oh, immensely, immensely. Admire all of them. 
What I admire most is the sort of family atmosphere. It 
is a thing that I have missed all my life.’' 

'' Well,” said Billy Blake, with a laugh, '' it wasn’t 
the home atmosphere that attracted me. I liked it when 
I saw it, but I had pledged myself before I knew anything 
about it.” 

“I don’t know so much about that,” rejoined the other. 
“ However, you are a lucky dog. I hope you and your 
bride will be happy, old chap. You know I have never 
said anything about it to you before, but I shall feel it 
beastly much when you are married.” 

“ Oh, go along !” 

Yes ; it’s you that are going along all the same. You 
know I once stayed at Blankhampton.” 

Did you, though ?” 

“ Yes. I came here when the Scarlet Lancers were 
here. I came for a week to stay with Esmond.” 

You don’t mean it! Meet anybody?” 

“ My dear chap, shoals of people. He told them I was 
the Shah of Persia, or something of that kind.” 

Oh, go along!” 

Yes, I know, I know. I did go along just in time. 
Gad ! they’d have married me if I hadn’t. Such a queer 
thing, you know, old chap, that you should choose Blank- 
hampton of all places to come and be married in, when I 
got so nearly done for when I was here myself.” 


20 


JOAN 


“ Yes, it is rather odd. Who was the special charmer?” 

“ I don’t know. It was a crowd, you know.” 

“ What a larky chap Esmond is ! Always taking a rise 
out of somebody or other.” 

Well, he took a rise promptly out of the whole town 
as soon as I turned up.” 

No, but joking apart, who did he say you were?” 

“Well, he said I was heir to the Sultan of Morocco, 
or somebody or other, and, gad! I had the town after 
me.” 

“ Did you dress the part ?” 

“ No, no. He said I had had a ’Varsity bringing up, 
and was quite English — ha, ha!” 

“ Well, that was rather like Esmond. I never stayed 
with him — never, but I stayed in the same house. He’s a 
larky chap. Then you may expect to be paid a good deal 
of attention during the next few days.” 

“ I suppose I may, if any of them recognize me. Per- 
haps they won’t.” 

“ Old chap,” said Billy Blake, giving his friend a vig- 
orous dig with his elbow such as almost sent him head- 
long into the road, “ old chap, don’t be downhearted. One 
of these days all your collaterals will work straight, and 
then you’ll find a fate of your own, and you’ll settle down 
and create a home atmosphere for yourself. Mind you, 
I’m not sneering at it. It’s awfully jolly when you get 
it. I’ve always had it, and that’s why perhaps I don’t 
value it as much as you do. And now that all my sisters 
are married and gone to India, and my mother has taken 


21 


LITTLE JOAN 


it into her head to get married again and go and live in 
Italy, I’ve missed it. And that’s one reason why I’ve 
wanted to get married. I was so sick of having nowhere 
to go when I went on leave. Going to stay in other peo- 
ple’s houses isn’t quite the same thing. The best thing 
you can do, Ozzie, is to marry a girl with a lot of money.” 

Is it?” said Mainwaring. “Well, do you know I 
rather doubt that ?” 

“ I never did believe in any of that rot about mercenary 
marriages,” Billy Blake went on. “ Can anybody pretend 
that my young woman is going to marry a lot of money, 
and that she wouldn’t have married me if I hadn’t as many 
hundreds as I have thousands? Bosh, I tell you, bosh! 
She’s going to marry me because she’s in love, and I’m in 
love; we’re both in love. And I tell you, sir, it’s a 
damned good thing to be in love, too. I only wish I had 
met her five years ago, before I wasted so much over 
other people.” 

“If you met her five years ago you mightn’t have liked 
her.” 

“ Yes, I should. It’s the only regret I’ve got in the 
world, Ozzie — nothing gives one back those five years.” 


22 


CHAPTER III 


Not A Hitch 

B ill BLAKE and Maud Delamere were married in 
the Cathedral, that splendid fane which familiarly 
goes by the name of the Parish. It was not anybody or 
everybody in the old city of Blankhampton who was 
privileged to command special services in the cathedral 
church. Among his many appointments, Mr. Delamere 
held one which had to do with the Dean and Chapter, 
and he was thereby as an official privileged to the extent 
that members of his family might be wed in the glorious 
old church. 

It was a pretty wedding. Between ourselves, a coun- 
try wedding is often much prettier than one which takes 
place in a large centre of human life. People in London 
may or may not attend such functions — it is as the fancy 
of the moment seizes them; in a country town it is a 
point of honour to do so. Then, again, very few specta- 
tors go to a London wedding, unless it is one of very great 
public interest; in a place like Blankhampton half the 
town turns out to see a popular girl take the step which 
will probably separate her from her native city for ever. 
So with the Delameres. From generation to generation 
the Delameres had wooed and wedded, had lived and died 
in the shadow of the old Cathedral; and all sorts and 


23 


LITTLE JOAN 


conditions of people went to see the eldest daughter of 
the house married to her dragoon. “ The flower of the 
flock” a good many called her, but they were not those 
who admired little Joan. 

It was a glorious morning, typical bride’s weather, with 
a radiant sun overhead and not a tear to mar the bright- 
ness of the occasion. Even Mrs. Delamere did not think 
it necessary to be unduly lachrymose. 

“ You bore it very well, Mrs. Delamere,” said one dame, 
the mother of several ungainly daughters. “ I consider 
your fortitude absolutely marvellous.” 

“ Oh, no,” said Mrs. Delamere ; I didn’t feel the need 
of any fortitude. I’m delighted at the match Maudie is 
making. So long as a girl marries the man of her heart, 
that’s the principal thing. Mr. Blake is certainly the man 
of Maudie’s heart, and one cannot wonder at it.” 

“ Ah, that’s a way of putting it, but your mother’s soul 
must have been sick within you.” 

'' I beg your pardon, it was nothing of the kind. My 
mother’s soul is absolutely delighted that my girl should 
be marrying such an extremely desirable and personable 
young man. Mr. Delamere and I have always had the 
same feeling about our girls — that they should marry 
where their hearts dictate.” 

It’s such a risk,” said the dame. 

“ Yes, but everything’s a risk in this world — every- 
thing, and one must take the risk if one wants to have 
the prizes. It’s a grand thing to look on the bright side, 
Mrs. Perkyns.” 


24 


NOT A HITCH 


“ You seem to find it easy, my dear,’’ said the other. 

For my part, I should be heartbroken if I was losing one 
of my girls.” 

'' I’m not losing my girl,” Mrs. Delamere maintained 
stoutly. “ But do go and have some breakfast, Mrs. Per- 
kyns. You mustn’t go without seeing Maudie’s presents ; 
they’re quite beautiful.” 

“ Heartless woman !” said the dame to her eldest 
hope. 

You never did like her, mother,” rejoined the girl. 

“ Perhaps I didn’t,” said the lady. However, we’ll 
go and get some breakfast, and then we’ll look at the 
presents. Judging by Mrs. Delamere’s voice, they must 
be handsome.” 

Half an hour later the amiable lady met another like 
unto herself in the library, where the presents were laid 
out for inspection. “ It seems to me that Maudie 
Delamere has done very well for herself,” she re- 
marked. 

Extremely well, my dear. The man has given her the 
most lovely collet necklace of diamonds, and the little 
minx never wore it. Such mock humility !” 

“ And did you see the star given by the best man ? He 
seems awfully taken with little Joan. He’s never left her 
side once since they got home from church.” 

Of course, they’ve never introduced him to anybody,” 
said the other lady. But I think the wedding went off 
very well.” 

“Yes. A little ostentatious, don’t you think? Those 

25 


LITTLE JOAN 


favours in church, and the little pages in white satin suits 
with diamond pins, and all that nonsense, and a wedding- 
cake three feet high. Oh, it is absurd !’’ 

“ Well, Robert Delamere has a good many people to 
remember.” 

“ Oh, I don’t blame him for doing the thing well once 
in a way. And, after all, she’s making a very good match, 
as you can see by the presents.” 

“ And a very good-looking young man,” said Mrs. Per- 
kyns’s eldest hope, who turned from a table at that mo- 
ment. 

“ Handsome is as handsome does, my dear,” said the 
other lady. 

The girl turned aside with a mutinous air, as if she 
resented the little cut-and-dried aphorism of her mother’s 
crony. She herself had a weakness, poor child, for the 
outward and visible sign, and so honestly thought Maud 
Delamere the luckiest girl in the wide world, — which 
perhaps she was. 

At that moment one of the tall daughters of the house 
approached them. “ Oh, Marjorie,” she said, addressing 
herself to Mrs. Perkyns’s eldest hope, there’s a man 
here who’s awfully anxious to make your acquaintance. 
May I introduce him to you ?” 

“ Oh, yes, thanks,” said Marjorie Perkyns, flushing 
all over her pale face and looking quite pretty for the 
moment. 

Agnes Delamere flitted away, appearing almost imme- 
diately with a tall young man by her side. “ Let me in- 

26 


NOT A HITCH 


troduce Mr. Rupert Blake,” she said. “ Miss Marjorie 
Perkyns.” 

Mr. Rupert Blake, who was young and extremely good- 
looking, bowed very deferentially to Marjorie. “ Have 
you had any refreshments ?” he asked her. 

“ Yes, Pve been into the dining-room.” 

“ I don’t believe you got much. There was an awful 
crush just now. Do come back and let me give you some 
more. Er — are you any relation of the bride’s ?” he went 
on, in a high-pitched voice, as they moved away. 

Her reply was inaudible to the mother and the other 
lady, but his next remark came floating back to them. 

“ Well, I’m about a third cousin of Billy Blake’s, and 
a great pal of his. I feel as if I were kind of responsible 
for things to-day. Eh, what?” 

I should think,” said Mrs. Perkyns to the other lady, 
“ that he asked to be introduced to Marjorie.” 

“ Well, she said he did,” said the other lady promptly. 

Truth to say, I did not set out to tell the story of Billy 
Blake’s third cousin and Marjorie Perkyns. It is an inci- 
dent, and it is closed. There may be a history later on ; 
time will show. I told the incident just that I might 
show that the Delameres up the river did things very well 
on that wedding-day. Indeed, everything went oflf with- 
out a single hitch, and when at last the happy pair went 
gaily oflf on the journey which would last them all their 
lives the universal verdict was that the Delameres up 
the river had one and all behaved beautifully. 

They’re gone,” said little Joan, turning round as the 


27 


LITTLE JOAN 


carriage passed the entrance gates, and speaking to no 
one in particular. They’re gone. It’s all over.” 

But a shout,” suggested someone immediately in the 
rear. 

She looked round. The best man was standing just 
behind. 

“ Yes, yes, all over but a shout,” she acquiesced; “ and 
I don’t know, since the shout is to take the form of a 
dance, that it won’t be the best part of it.” 

“ For my part,” he said, “ I feel that my duties, my 
very onerous duties, are all at an end. I have never been 
best man before. I thought it not improbable that I might 
have to provide sal volatile for the bridegroom this morn- 
ing, and hold him up when he got to the altar. But old 
Billy was as cool as I ever saw him in this world.” 

Well, nobody asked him to marry Maudie, you know,” 
said little Joan. 

No, I suppose they didn’t. ’Pon my word, I was 
much more nervous than he was.” 

I don’t see what you had to be nervous about.” 

“ Well, I had never been best man before.” 

Well, he had never been married before.” 

“ No, no, you are right there. And I don’t want ever 
to be best man again.” 

“ Why not? Haven’t you enjoyed it?” 

“Yes, I’ve enjoyed it; but I don’t like playing second 
fiddle.” 

“You wouldn’t have liked to be bridegroom, would 
you ?” 


28 


NOT A HITCH 


Just shouldn’t I !” was his prompt reply. 

“ Well, it’s very easy.” 

'' Not so easy ; by no means so easy.” 

'' I don’t know,” said Joan, a curious little flicker 
coming across her riante face, “ I never — tried.” 

She turned back to go into the house, and he, passing 
with her, they entered, finding themselves quite alone in 
the outer hall. There was a huge old couch covered with 
some handsome furs in one corner. 

Sit down here awhile,” said Mainwaring, drawing 
her towards the comfortable seat. “ Nobody wants us 
in there. There are a lot of old cats who want to see the 
wedding-presents, — mercenary old things! You don’t 
want to see them. I don’t want to see them.” 

'' Don’t you?” said Joan. 

“No, I don’t ; you know I don’t. At present I only 
want to see one thing in the world.” 

“And that?” said she. 

“ Well, that is just what I do see. Now, do tell me. 
Miss Joan, which of you arranged this corner?” 

Joan shook her head. “ I don’t know. It’s been there 
ever since I can remember. I was eight years old when 
I came to this house. I think it’s always been there. 
Why?” 

“ Oh, nothing in particular. I thought it was a sensible 
arrangement, that was all.” 

“ We think it’s rather nice,” said Joan. “ We often sit 
here. When there’s a fire in the winter, it’s awfully 

jolly." 


29 


LITTLE JOAN 


‘‘Awfully jolly! I wish you would ask me to come 
when you’ve got a fire in the winter.” 

“ Oh, you are funny ! You don’t mean to say you would 
come all the way to Blankhampton just to see this 
wretched little hall with a fire in the winter?” 

“ Not exactly to see the wretched little hall, even with 
a fire in the winter, but to see — other things.” 

“ Ah, yes,” said Joan, “ I begin to take your meaning. 
Well, perhaps if you are very good and very civil during 
the next few hours, you may find the way to my mother’s 
heart. It’s not as a rule difficult.” 

“ Couldn’t you give me a short cut ?” said he. 

“ No,” she said, “ I don’t think I could. There are not 
any short cuts to my mother’s favour. You must work 
out your own salvation, Mr. Mainwaring.” 

“ I’ll have a try for it,” said Mainwaring, heartily. “ I 
say. Miss Joan I” 

“ Well?” 

“ It would be rather odd, wouldn’t it, if we got trans- 
ferred to Blankhampton?” 

“ Oh, the Black Horse have been at Blankhampton be- 
fore. I remember them quite well.” 

“ They haven’t been for a long time.” 

“ No, they haven’t. But they made themselves very 
much at home when they were here.” 

“ What, did they paint the town red ?” 

“ No, I don’t know that they did that,” said Joan, with 
a laugh. “ It wasn’t exactly a case of painting the town 
red, but they, most of them, married Blankhampton girls.” 


30 


NOT A HITCH 


they come here and do it again/’ said Mainwaring, 
“ Billy will be able to say that he is well ahead of the 
fashions.” 

“ Oh, they won’t do it again. It was an accident,” said 
the girl, smiling. 

Well, it might be an accident. Perhaps there might 
be no accident about it. I can understand a man quar- 
tered in Blankhampton marrying a Blankhampton girl.” 

“ Well, I,” said Joan, with a gay little laugh, must say 
that I can’t understand anybody marrying anybody else 
in Blankhampton.” 

But why?” 

I don’t know. Blankhampton people scarcely ever 
marry each other. When they do, I think, on the whole, 
they are rather ashamed of the fact.” 

Are Blankhampton young men so insensible ?” asked 
Mainwaring. 

I never knew but one fellow who was really — really, 
you know — no half measures, but the real thing — over 
head and ears in love with a Blankhampton girl.” 

‘^And he married her?” 

No, he didn’t marry her,” said Joan, sadly. He was 
one of my cousins. She went away and married some- 
body else.” 


3 * 


CHAPTER IV 


Little Girl 


HE wedding was an event three days gone by. The 



time was five o’clock in the afternoon. The scene 


was the same cosy corner in the hall at Riverside. The 
characters were Joan Delamere and Oswald Mainwaring. 

But I thought,” Joan was saying, that you only 
came to Blankhampton for three days.” 

So I did, but I had ten days’ leave.” 

Oh ! What did you intend to do with the rest ?” 

Well, I intended to go to town.” 

'' Why didn’t you go ?” 

Because I am very happy where I am. You see, little 
girl, when I promised to go and see old Billy turned off, 
I thought that three days — the day before, the wedding- 
day, and the day after the wedding-day — would suffice to 
see me comfortably through it. I didn’t know I should 
find — well, just what I did find at the end of the jour- 


ney. 


Joan traced with a small white finger the pattern of 
the flower on her muslin gown. ‘‘ What did you find ?” 
she asked. 

“ I found a little girl,” said Mainwaring. 

“ Yes. Well, I suppose you mean — I suppose you mean 


me. 


32 


^ 9 ' 


LITTLE GIRL 


'' Of course I mean you/' he replied. “ I found just 
what I had been looking for ever since I could remember 
anything.” 

Meaning me ?” said Joan. Her voice trembled a little, 
and so did the finger. 

Is there anybody else that I could mean ?” said Main- 
waring, keeping his eyes fixed upon her. “ There isn’t 
another little girl in the house, ha, ha ! They’re all 
bouncing big ones. Don’t think I don’t admire Bill’s 
choice. I do. Your sister will suit Bill down to the 
ground. He always liked big girls; I never did. So 
when I lound,” — then he made an eloquent pause, — 
''when I found a little girl, I felt that I could put in 
the ten days of my leave very comfortably at Blank- 
hampton.” 

" And you are going to stay another week ?” 

" I am going to stay to the last hour that I can.” 

For a moment there was silence. They were not very 
near together; indeed, Joan was sitting bolt upright in 
the very middle of the long seat, and Mainwaring was 
leaning back in great comfort in one corner of it. 

Suddenly she turned and looked at him. “ I — I don’t 
know who gave you leave to call me ' little girl,’ Mr. 
Mainwaring,” she said. " I think it’s rather a — a cheek.” 

" Do you ? But you are a little girl.” 

" Yes, I am ; but it is not for you to tell me so, or to 
call me so, is it?” 

" I think it is. Look here, little girl,” he went on, 
" joking apart, if we should have the luck to get trans- 


3 


33 


LITTLE JOAN 

ferred to Blankhampton, you would be rather pleased, 
wouldn’t you ?” 

'' Oh, I don’t know.” 

Come now, you know just as well as I do. Why 
should we sham to each other?” 

“ I have only known you three days,” she said, de- 
murely. 

Is it only three days ?” 

Well, four days.” 

Is it only four days ? Has it been four years, or four 
centuries ? Do you know, little girl, I think I must have 
known you ages and ages and ages ago in some other 
incarnation.” 

“You don’t believe all that?” 

“ I don’t know that I disbelieve it. It’s hard to believe 
or to disbelieve anything. I have a sort of feeling that I 
knew you once somewhere or other. Tell me, do you 
never feel that you have lived before?” 

“ Oh, yes, often and often. I feel that I sat here in 
this corner and talked to you, or to somebody like you, 
yesterday — or was it last week? or was it last century? 
I don’t know, I don’t know. But we didn’t sit here yes- 
terday; we were ten miles away. It’s a trick of the 
brain ; it isn’t real.” 

“ I’ve never been sure of that. I’m not sure of it 
now,” said he. “ But I can tell you this for certain — 
when I came into your mother’s drawing-room the day 
before the wedding, just behind old Billy, and she 
promptly introduced me to a rather pretty girl who was 

34 


LITTLE GIRL 


sitting on the sofa, I was watching you all the time, and 
wondering and wondering where I had seen you before. 
You were perfectly familiar to me.” 

Was I?” 

Perfectly. It was a shock to me when I found that 
you were one of the daughters of the house, because I 
knew I had never seen any one of them excepting the 
bride in all my life before.” 

I’m like somebody you know,” suggested Joan. 

“ I don’t think so. Yours isn’t a common type.” 

Joan jumped up with an evident desire to change the 
conversation. “ There is the common or garden tea-bell,” 
she cried gaily, and as the words passed her lips the 
sound of a clanging tea-bell was heard in the inner hall. 

Now, how in the name of wonder,” said he, “ did 
you know that that bell was going to ring? I’ll swear 
there wasn’t a sound, or an indication of it, before you 
spoke.” 

Oh, yes, there was. I heard William come out of 
the dining-room, and I knew he was going to ring the 
bell. There’s nothing clairvoyant about it, I assure you. 
Come, let’s be first in the dining-room and get a start of 
the others.” 

The romance of the moment was over. Mainwaring 
drew a long breath and shook himself out of his semi- 
mystic mood into a semblance of the typical every-day 
dragoon. 

“ Look here, I say. Miss Joan,” he said, in his ordinary 
dragoon voice, as he followed her into the dining-room, 

35 


LITTLE JOAN 

“ couldn’t you come out on the river for an hour after we 
have had tea ?” 

Yes, if you like.” 

“ Can you get away without the others knowing ? It’s 
such a bore going about in a drove; don’t you think 
so?” 

'' I hate it,” said Joan, “ because a drove is always so 
noisy, and I hate a noise.” 

“So do I — loathe it. That’s why I like that couch in 
the corner. By the bye,” he said, standing at the tea- 
table and watching the girl pour out two cups of tea, “ by 
the bye. I’ve got a bit of news for you.” 

“ Have you really ?” 

“ Yes; I had a letter from Jackson of ours this morn- 
ing.” 

“Yes? You do take sugar, don’t you?” 

“ Thanks, yes.” 

“ Two lumps ?” 

“ Yes, please.” 

“ And what did Mr. Jackson say?” 

“Jackson? He’s senior captain, you know.” 

“ I beg his mighty pardon. I’m so sorry. Well, 
what did his mightiness say? Is he a great friend of 
yours ?” 

“ Yes, he’s a great friend of mine, and he tells me that 
there’s more than a chance that we shall be shifted to 
Blankhampton in February — that is to say, the beginning 
of March.” 

“ You don’t say so !” 


36 


LITTLE GIRL 


I do. I was hoping it, I felt almost sure of it. 
Rather jolly, won’t it be? particularly having your sister 
in the regiment.” 

“ What’s that ?” said a gay voice at the door. 

'' Well, it’s great news,” answered Joan, settling down 
in her place at the long table. “ Mr. Mainwaring says 
that there’s more than a chance that the Black Horse will 
be transferred to Blankhampton in the spring.” 

You don’t say so! Joan, I think you are a little 
beast.” 

Why?” 

You might have poured me out a cup of tea when you 
saw me at the door.” 

Not at all. Every man for himself — you know the 
rest. In this instance you are one of the hindmost. You 
see, Mr. Mainwaring,” Joan continued, looking up at 
him, ” we’re an outspoken family. I, being the little one, 
would be at the beck and call of all my long and strong 
sisters. Little people have to look after themselves. So 
Agnes can pour out her own tea.” 

'' All right, all right ; I shall remember it against you,” 
said Agnes with ineffable good nature. “ So,” turning 
to Mr. Mainwaring, you think you are coming to Blank- 
hampton. That will be very nice.” 

'' I must say if I were Maudie I would rather not,” 
said Joan. 

'' But why ?” asked Mainwaring. 

** Oh, I think the people you have known all your life 
are rather a bore. If you are going to live among them, 

37 


LITTLE JOAN 


well and good; if you are just going to live among 
them for a year or less, or a little more, not so well and 
good/’ 

I wonder where they’ll pitch their tent,” said Agnes. 

“ I know where I shall pitch mine,” said Mainwaring. 

“ Oh, won’t you live in barracks ?” cried Agnes. 

“ Yes, yes, I shall live there, but I shall inflict myself 
pretty often at Riverside.” 

“ I daresay you will. You will be very welcome. I’m 
glad you are coming in some ways. By the bye, I thought 
you were only going to stay three days, Mr. Main- 
waring ?” 

I had ten days’ leave,” said Mainwaring, helping 
himself to another chunk of hot cake. 

“ Oh, ten days’ leave? I see. You are going to spend 
them in Blankhampton ?” 

‘‘ I think so.” 

Ah, well, that’s very nice ; it speaks well for the place. 
Joan, where are all the others?” 

“ I haven’t the ghost of an idea,” answered Joan. 

What are you going to do after tea, Aggie ?” 

Oh, I have to go to Mrs. Desmond’s. I’m due there 
at six o’clock to the minute, otherwise I shan’t get my 
pink dress, and if I don’t have it I can’t go to Strath- 
field.” 

You are going away ?” said Mainwaring. 

Yes, I’m going away on Thursday. The Gowers of 
Strathfield are great friends of mine, and they’ve got the 
house full next week.” 


38 


LITTLE GIRL 


Agnes Delamere was just going out of the dining-room 
when Mrs. Delamere came in. 

Oh, am I late?’' she cried. “ Dear, dear! No, don’t 
ring the bell, Agnes, don’t ring the bell, dear. This tea- 
pot will do for me. I have had such a tiresome after- 
noon ; people coming and going all the time. Everybody 
going on to Mrs. Perkyns’s. Are you going, Joan?” 

“ I don’t think so, darling.” 

“ Well, I must. I’ve ordered the carriage to be round 
in ten minutes. I hope William won’t let anybody else 
in. Where are you going?” 

Oh, we’re going on the river a little while.” 

Well, put a coat on ; it’s rather chilly.” 

Is it really?” 

Yes, I think so. You won’t be the worse for a coat, 
at all events. Take it with you, and don’t be late, be- 
cause, remember, we are dining at half-past seven to- 
night.” 

At half-past seven? Why?” 

Because of the concert.” 

“ Oh, of course.” 

'' What concert is that?” asked Mainwaring. 

'' It’s a concert in the village school-room about a mile 
off, at Waterbank. It’s for the church. So we dine at 
half-past seven, Mr. Mainwaring.” 

Mainwaring turned back and looked with some little 
hesitation at Mrs. Delamere. “ Mrs. Delamere,” he said, 
“ I feel rather — I feel rather a bit of a fraud.” 

Do you?” 


39 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Well, you see, you were kind enough to ask me to dine 
with you on the evenings I was in Blankhampton, but I — 
I came for three days, and I — I don’t like to inflict myself 
on you in quite an unconscionable manner.” 

“ My dear Mr. Mainwaring,” said the lady, indulgently, 
“ we’re such an enormous family that one more or less 
makes little or no difference to us. If you want to dine 
with friends, well, that is your affair; but there’s no 
reason why you should dine by yourself at a hotel, leaving 
an empty place at our table.” 

You are awfully kind,” he murmured. 

“ But if you are going on the river,” Mrs. Delamere 
went on, “ you two, make haste and go before it’s too 
late. Don’t go too far, Joan.” 

No, no, mother,” said Joan, '' I’ll be most careful. 
Come along, Mr. Mainwaring, or the others will be in, 
and we shall be overwhelmed in a sea of idle talk.” 

She caught up a hat from its place in the hall, and 
throwing a loose light coat over her thin frock, she led 
the way across the garden to the boat-house by the river. 


40 


CHAPTER V 


The End of the First Phase 
HE end of Oswald Mainwaring’s leave had come. 



A ten days’ leave does soon come to an end in the 


ordinary course of events, and when the ten days have 
been passed in an atmosphere particularly stimulating 
and agreeable, it is astonishing how the hours seem to fly. 

Main waring and little Joan had the Riverside garden 
to themselves, for the entire family were gone oif in 
various directions on expeditions and jaunts of their own. 
As a matter of fact, the two were down on the raised ter- 
race which overlooked the public walk between the River- 
side boundary and the river itself. It was a favourite 
resort of the whole family. There was a long, low, and 
exceedingly substantial summer-house, with cushioned 
seats and a sort of outlook, a kind of windowless window, 
where those who wished could lean and view any traffic, 
pedestrian or aquatic, that might be passing by. 

It was in this corner that Mainwaring and little Joan 
found themselves that afternoon. 

“ I think,” Joan was saying, “ that you were rather 
foolish not to go this morning.” 

I don’t,” returned Mainwaring, sturdily ; “ nothing of 
the kind. It’s true I shall have to travel pretty much all 
the night, but that won’t matter.” 


41 


LITTLE JOAN 


What will you do after you get to London, until it's 
time to start for Danford ?” 

‘‘ Oh, it's quite simple. I've done it before — stay in the 
waiting-room or go out and put in the time at a coffee- 
stall. Quite simple. Many a good breakfast I've had at 
a London coffee-stall waiting for the morning train. So 
long as I get down to Danford in time for officers' call, 
that’s all that is necessary." 

I don’t see what you gain by it," persisted Joan. 

‘'Don’t you? You would if you were me. I gain a 
whole half-day. I've had all this glorious afternoon alone 
with you; I shall have tea alone with you, since all the 
others are out ; and then we shall have a couple of hours 
to spend just as we please. That’s the beauty of your 
people; they don’t bore one with questions. Then we 
shall have a last dinner and evening together, and I shall 
have a scramble to catch the mail ; but it’s worth it ; oh, 
yes, little girl, it’s worth it." 

He took her hand in his and drew her to the wicker 
lounging seat which just held two, at the back of the shel- 
ter. It was the first time that he had ever done so, and 
Joan resisted the innovation. 

“ No, no," she said, “ we’re going up to the house. It’s 
tea-time." 

“ When it’s tea-time the estimable William will ring the 
bell,” said he. “ Come, little girl, don’t be standoffish 
and hard. It’s our last afternoon together. You don’t 
want me to go away thinking that I am nothing to you ?” 

“ You are nothing to me," said Joan, perversely. 


42 


THE END OF THE FIRST PHASE 


“Am I not? You want to make believe that you are 
nothing to me? Oh, little girl, it won’t wash. You know 
exactly what we are to each other.” 

“ No, I don’t,” said Joan, wilfully. 

“ Oh ! Well, since you say you don’t, why. I’ll tell you. 
We’re everything in the world to each other, aren’t we ?” 
He had still possession of her hand. Joan had made no 
further attempt to draw it away, but it was a passive, 
unresisting little hand, whose presence within his might 
mean anything or nothing. “ Come,” said he, giving it 
a little shake to and fro, “ haven’t you anything to say ?” 

“ I don’t know that I have,” said Joan. 

“ Really? Must I say it all, and just take your answer 
by deduction? Oh, little girl, little girl, why is anything 
alive made as bewitching as you are ?” 

“ I might say something on my side,” said Joan. 

“ Say it, say it,” he urged. 

“No, I don’t think I will say it. You mightn’t think 
it polite.” 

“ I hope I shouldn’t — not in the way you mean. There’s 
no need of that kind of politeness between you and me. 
We’ve gone beyond that, little girl, and you know it as 
well as I do. Come, you are not going to send me away 
in doubt, miserable, sick at heart, not knowing just the 
plain blunt truth ? We’ve got a lot to talk of, you and I. 
I’ve got a lot to tell you, a lot to ask you. There are a 
great many things I want you to do for me. It won’t be 
all plain sailing. I had no right to tell you I loved you ; 
I have no right to ask you to give your love to me. I am 


43 


LITTLE JOAN 


a fraud, Joan, an utter fraud, going about in the guise of 
a man of position, living in a wealthy set on twopence/’ 

Oh, what do I care !” 

“ You must care. WeVe all got to care. We may pre- 
tend we don’t, but it isn’t true — at least, only sometimes ; 
and when that sometimes happens and we really don’t 
care, and money has no weight with us, circumstances 
come in and force us against our will. Little girl, I want 
to take you away right out of this to-morrow — no, I 
don’t — I want to take you to-night — now. Circumstances 
are dead against me. I can’t go to your father, as is cus- 
tomary in our class, ask his consent and all the rest of it. 
He’d look me up and down, and ask me what I meant to 
keep you on.” 

“ Yes, he would,” said Joan, faintly. 

“ Of course he would. It’s his right ; it’s his duty. 
And yet, I can’t help loving you. Do you know I loved 
you the first moment I set eyes on you; and it wasn’t a 
new love, little girl. I told you as much once before. It 
was an old love — centuries, ages old. We lived together 
somewhere else. I believe it was on the banks of Isis. 
Can’t you remember anything about it? Or did we sit 
in some Tribune in the old Roman days? Think. Isn’t 
this very spot familiar to you?” 

Well, we have sat here often enough of late,” said 
Joan ; it ought to be.” 

I don’t mean in that way. Carry your mind 
back ” 

Joan drew her slim little fingers away from the zealous 


44 


THE END OF THE FIRST PHASE 


clasp of his, and fell to her favourite occupation of 
tracing out the pattern on her frock. I can’t remember 
anything,” she said. I liked you — I mean I liked your 
looks the first time, the day before the wedding, when 
you came with Billy. I thought you were smart, 
and ” 

Well,” he said, go on.” 

Oh, I may as well tell you. You’ll have it out of me 
sooner or later. I don’t want to look back. We may 
have known each other ages ago, in classic Greece, in 
stately Rome, in clear and cloudless Egypt — I don’t know. 
What does it matter?” 

Doesn’t it matter ?” 

“ No,” she said, “ I don’t think it matters one little 
scrap.” Then she looked up at him with her velvet-soft 
eyes and said what would have turned the heads of most 
men : Isn’t the present good enough ?” 

It was all up with him then. It was a complete declara- 
tion. “ Little girl, little girl !” he cried, “ don’t you know 
what it is that you do? Don’t you know the temptation 
you throw in my way ?” 

“ No,” said Joan, “ I certainly' never threw myself at 
you.” 

“ Threw yourself at me ? It would have been no temp- 
tation if you had. I believe it’s the very fact that you 
didn’t that has made me so hopelessly yours as I am. 
And yet, I don’t think it’s that — no, I don’t know what it 
is. It’s youf* 

** And perhaps a little that it’s you,” said Joan, softly. 

45 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Didn’t I say,” cried he, triumphantly, “ that we were 
everything to each other ?” 

It seemed like it. His hand released hers; his arm 
stole about her. The pathways of their lives had met 
once more and touched. How long they would run side 
by side, whether they would merge into one, whether 
they would wander far away from each other, the future 
alone knew. It was enough for them that they had met 
and touched. 

The tea-bell rang 'and rang again, and yet a third time, 
with a decent interval between each; and at last Joan 
shook herself out of that day-dream and brought him 
back to things mundane and domestic. 

Come, come, there’s the tea. I believe the bell rang 
before. William will think we’ve eloped, or are mad, or 
something.” 

“ It doesn’t matter what William thinks,” said Main- 
waring. 

She was already upon her feet, a dainty little figure in 
dove-grey cloth. He was still sitting, and he leant his 
head back against the wall of the summer-house and 
looked at her with half-closed eyes. Then he put out a 
strong, half-lazy arm and drew her back again. 

'' Kiss me again, Joan,” he said, “ before we go back 
into the cold world.” 

“ The world ?” said Joan, almost faintly. 

“Yes, the chill, cold, unsympathetic world, where you 
and I have got to play a part from this moment, where 
you and I have got to pretend that we are nothing to 

46 


THE END OF THE FIRST PHASE 


each other, where weVe each got to pretend we don’t 
take any interest in what the other does, where for a 
time, Joan, you and I have got to live a lie. But you’ll 
live it for me, won’t you ? you’ll bear everything for me, 
you’ll keep your eyes fixed on the good time ahead? You’ll 
not let some other fellow come along, another Billy Blake, 
and tempt you with everything that I can’t give you ?” 

No,” said Joan ; that I’ll never do. And, after all, 
money hasn’t any great attraction for me. I don’t care 
for money, scarcely for the things that money can buy.” 

You don’t care, because you don’t know. You have 
lived here — I daresay you think you live in quite a modest 
way ; that your big house, and your gardens, and your 
summer-house, and your boats, and your pretty frocks, all 
your unpretentious hospitality, open table and all that 
sort of thing, costs little money. Joan, you can’t do it 
under four or five thousand a year. I haven’t got four 
or five hundred. I’ve got crops of debts, and my pros- 
pects are nil. My father married for love on three hun- 
dred a year and his pay. There were six of us; if his 
cousin hadn’t helped him out with school bills we should 
never have been educated at all.” 

Who was his cousin ?” 

Mainwaring looked a trifle surprised. Lord 
Moresby,” he said. 

“ Oh, really ? I didn’t know you belonged to that 
family.” 

“ My family is all right,” said Mainwaring, if only 
one could live upon it. There was a chance once that I 

47 


LITTLE JOAN 


might succeed my father’s cousin, being the eldest of our 
tribe; but that hope was blighted long years ago, and 
young Kenneth Mainwaring is as fine a young man as 
you could find in any of the Guards’ regiment. He’s had 

all the luck I never had ” There was a moment’s 

silence. Then he took her by the chin and turned her 
face round to him. Always knocking off the one piece 
of luck that has always been mine, that you and I should 
meet again.” 

How you harp upon that string !” said Joan ; and she 
said it in a tone which showed that the idea was not dis- 
pleasing to her. 


48 


CHAPTER VI 


Change of Quarters 

I F the Black Horse had remained in their hated and 
detested quarters at Danford until the customary 
spring shuffle, it is probable that I should have had no 
story to tell, — at least, I might have no story to tell you, — 
but by an unexpected change of events they were moved 
to the snug cavalry barracks at Blankhampton about 
the middle of the month following Maudie Delamere’s 
wedding. 

The real truth was that the wife of the commanding 
officer of the Black Horse took a loathing for Danford, 
which meant that, unless she could live elsewhere, her 
husband would leave the regiment. As her husband had 
but just got command, and was a highly valued officer, 
and had, moreover, enormous influence in high places, 
the change was effected, and the Black Horse knew be- 
fore the end of the first week in October that they would 
be very soon en route for that favourite garrison, Blank- 
hampton. 

Mr. and Mrs. Billy Blake had not even thought of 
taking a house at Danford, having indeed not got through 
their marriage leave when the change of quarters was 
made known. They therefore returned, after a very short 
honeymoon, to Riverside, and there stayed a few days 

49 


4 


LITTLE JOAN 


in order that they might reconnoitre the neighbourhood; 
not that, of course, Maudie did not know it, but, you see, 
she had never looked upon it in the light of a marriage 
residence. 

They were not many hours in snapping up a little gem 
of a house which stood on the river’s bank, some three or 
four hundred yards farther out of town than Riverside 
itself. It was called River Walk Cottage, and was usually 
given up to the needs of married officers quartered in the 
garrison. 

You can imagine, my dear reader, the thrill of joy with 
which the news of the forthcoming change was received 
by at least one person at Riverside when she first heard 
it. Little Joan turned rosy red, and then ghastly white, 
taking the first chance of getting away to her own room, 
which, being the middle sister, she did not share with 
anybody, and there flung herself upon the bed and tried 
to realize what it would mean to her. He had been gone 
already more than a week, he had not written her one 
word, he had not made one sign, he had not asked her 
to write to him. So he was coming to Blankhampton to 
live. He would be just up the road, and she would see 
him every day, or almost every day, perhaps for two long 
years. And then — well, perhaps then there would be the 
deluge. 

But what was the good of thinking about what would 
happen two years ahead ? He was coming back. She up- 
raised herself from the little couch where she took her 
rest, and went to her writing-table by the window. A few 

50 


CHANGE OF QUARTERS 


late roses still nodded their pinched faces against the 
pane, as much as to say: We are still here. It is still 
summer.’^ But the window was closed. Little Joan 
opened a drawer at the back of the little cupboard in the 
middle of the desk with a key which hung among a bunch 
of charms on the long chain that she wore about her neck, 
and took from it a photograph in a big envelope. Of 
course, it was a photograph of him, and underneath the 
gaily garbed figure was written : “ Ozzie. September 
25th. To my darling.” 

So he was coming back. Oh, it was almost too good 
to be true ! And nobody knew. They had chaffed her a 
little about it down-stairs, they had asked her if life was 
blank and dreary now, they had hinted that if anybody 
wanted anything they could demand it of little Joan, be- 
cause her occupation was gone. They had even gone so 
far as to call her Othello. Oh, how silly it all was ! And 
he was coming back again, and they were all blind to it. 

Well, they would have to be very careful. They would 
have to give it out that they were great pals, sworn 
chums, nothing more. As for marrying, — marrying was 
all rubbish, and only to be thought of as a sort of dernier 
resort. Meantime she was heart and soul possessed of 
the one idea — Ozzie was coming back again. Ozzie was 
going to be just up the road; Ozzie was going to be a 
daily dish. 

Maudie said about this time that it was a curious thing 
that Joan was extraordinarily helpful. '' All you girls are 
as lazy as lazy can be— perfect idle bones,” she remarked 

51 


LITTLE JOAN 


one evening, when she had been at home four or five days. 
“ Not a stitch, that is to say, not a stroke will any of you 
do for a poor woman that’s got a husband to look after. 
But Joan’s quite different; Joan’s always ready with a 
helping hand, always sympathetic, always eager and will- 
ing to fill the odd moment.” 

I suppose,” said Agnes, you’ll try to make out that 
you and Joan are a pair, and we are the odd ones. Don’t 
you flatter yourself, my dear Mrs. Billy Blake. You and 
we are one, and Joan is the odd man out. Joan has the 
different nature ; Joan has the different personality. Joan 
is unique; you are only one of a set. So don’t you try it 
on, Mrs. Billy Blake, not a bit of it — we’re not taking any 
this time.” 

So the gay idle gossip was thrown to and fro, and it 
served somewhat more than its purpose in helping to keep 
Joan’s doings, Joan’s feelings, and Joan’s predilections 
from further notice. 

And in due course of time the Black Horse straggled 
in troop by troop to their new quarters. Mainwaring was 
one of the last to reach them. He arrived with his men 
about two o’clock in the day, having had but a short 
march for the last day’s work. If he had followed his 
inclination, he would have changed his clothes, getting 
out of his paint for mufti, and gone straight down to 
Riverside; but he felt it was necessary to dissemble 
somewhat, so he spent the afternoon in looking after the 
settlement of his quarters, and did not go down to River- 
side until late the following afternoon. 


52 


CHANGE OF QUARTERS 


Joan knew, of course, that he had arrived the previous 
day. She had waited with her heart in her mouth for 
every knock that came to the door between five and 
seven. If he had come then he would have found her 
quite alone. Two of her sisters had gone up to the cottage 
to have tea with Maudie, and Violet was somewhere in 
the town on some quest of her own. Mrs. Delamere was 
that afternoon on a committee, — a committee for in some 
way alleviating the condition of the poor at Blankhamp- 
ton, a meeting which always lasted a couple of hours, and 
ended up with a very merry tea at the house of its presi- 
dent. So Joan, having a slight cold, was alone. Well, 
he hadn’t chosen to come. Perhaps he did not care still. 

When he did come he found the whole family gathered 
together in the long drawing-room, with the addition of 
several cousins, Billy Blake and his wife, and half a 
dozen people whom he did not know. Even then he did 
not straightway join Joan, but sat down by her mother, 
with whom he talked for quite a quarter of an hour, — in- 
deed, until somebody else came into the room and claimed 
her attention. Then, in a leisurely manner, he got up, 
and, casting his eyes slowly around, went carelessly and 
casually across the room to where Joan was sitting. 

Well, Miss Joan, I’m back again, you see,” he said, 
holding out his hand. 

Yes, I see you are back again,” said Joan. Her man- 
ner was bright, and if her heart was as solid as lead, and 
as heavy, she hid it uncommonly well. Let me intro- 
duce you to Miss Matcher,” she said. 

53 


LITTLE JOAN 


Miss Matcher bowed. She was neither in her first 
youth, nor yet beautiful. She had red hair and a freckled 
face and a snub nose, but her smile was pleasant and dis- 
tinctly encouraging. 

Mainwaring sat down immediately with an air of de- 
votion which completely took in both the girls. He told 
them some few little incidents of the march; how de- 
lighted he was to find himself free of the shadow of Dan- 
ford, and how glad to be in the delightful atmosphere of 
Blankhampton. 

There was good hunting at Danford,” he observed. 
“ Yes, there was hunting, very decent hunting — unlike 
this, you know, but still passable; otherwise, excepting 
that it was fairly near London, so that one could go up 
for the day and come down in the early morning if neces- 
sary, the place had positively not one thing to recommend 
it. Vile people, horrible people ; hideous country ; dirty, 
sordid streets, and the worst barracks I was ever in in 
my life. Ton my word, it’s hard to understand why such 
a place should have been pitched on for a cavalry station ; 
or, having been pitched on, why it should have been done 
so thoroughly on the cheap. Now, here everything is 
different. How lucky for your sister. Miss Joan, that she 
is going to begin her army experience in a place like 
Blankhampton rather than in such a God-forsaken hole 
as Danford !” 

“ Do you know, I think Maudie would almost rather 
have started in a strange place ?” said Joan. 

“ Really ? Ah, she may think so ; but if that strange 
54 


CHANGE OF QUARTERS 


place was Danford, it puts it distinctly outside the pale. 
I never hated a place so much in my life.” 

“ Perhaps you’ll hate Blankhampton before you’re 
away from it.” 

I don’t think so,” said Mainwaring, with perfect 
seriousness. “ Excellent hunting, good shooting, good 
society, good country, beautiful town, lovely girls ” 

“ What, in Blankhampton ?” cried Miss Matcher. 

I thought,” said he, looking her straight in the face, 

when I was here for Billy’s wedding that I had never 
seen a town with so many pretty girls in it in my life 
before.” 

A sudden spasm shot through Joan’s heart, that faith- 
ful heart which had given itself wholly and for ever, that 
heart which had been hitherto so hard, so unapproachable. 
Was he going to class her in a lump with all the rest of 
the Blankhampton girls? Plad he come determined just 
to have a good time?* Would he say the same things to 
them ? 

“ Yes, I must go. You see, my mother’s on the move,” 
said Miss Matcher, rising to her feet. 

Joan got up, and so of course did Mainwaring, shook 
hands, thanked the parting guest when she begged him 
to call, and he promptly sat down again as soon as she had 
moved a step away. 

Joan looked round irresolute, but by a deft movement 
he gave her skirt an imperative twitch, which conveyed 
quite as plainly as words would have done that he ex- 
pected here to sit down again at once. ''You are not 

55 


LITTLE JOAN 


thinking of going away, surely, talking to some senseless 
nobody, when I have been eating my very heart out and 
making conversation with that frightful young woman 
he murmured in a rapid undertone. 

“ Were you making conversation?” said Joan. 

Mainwaring, turning, looked at her with a whole world 
of expression in his eyes. ‘‘ Did I take you in ?” he asked, 
in a tone of much amusement. ‘‘ Did I really take you in ? 
Gad! what a clever chap I must be! Why, little girl, I 
thought the young lady with the red head — most appro- 
priately named Matcher, by the bye — would hear my 
heart going thump, thump, thump. Can’t you hear it your- 
self?” 


56 


CHAPTER VII 


A Break in the Chain 

I T is not very likely that, had the course of events run 
in an ordinary manner, the friendship between Main- 
waring and little Joan could have remained unnoticed by 
a family as quick-witted and keen of vision as the Dela- 
meres up the river. 

November and December went quietly by. In January 
Mainwaring took his leave, and, as he explained to Joan, 
it was absolutely necessary that he should go away for 
part of it. 

I don’t want to go,” he declared. I’d very much 
rather stop here; but it would look very suspicious if I 
did, because I’ve never stayed with a regiment for leave 
in my life, and my people would be down on me for a 
dead certainty. And altogether it’s very much better that 
I should go away, for a part of it at all events.” 

“Yes, yes,” said Joan; “it would be preposterous — 
your staying here.” 

“ It wouldn’t be preposterous from our point of view, 
but it would from the point of view of all the outsiders. 
Oh, little girl, little girl, how I wish we could go away 
on leave together, you and I, and risk everything !” 

For a moment Joan did not speak, could not speak. 
Her heart was beating to suffocation, a great lump had 


57 


LITTLE JOAN 


risen up in her throat, the pain of which was almost intol- 
erable. What are the risks ?” she asked at last. 

The risks, my dear child, the risks ? Ah, it’s not so 
much the risks as it is impossible, out of the question. 
I’ve got half a dozen invitations to big country houses. 
I can’t take them — I can’t afford it.” 

“ Why not?” 

So expensive. I should have to take horses with me, 
and my man; and the tips are enormous. You don’t 
realize how hideously poor I am.” 

“ I think I do, Ozzie,” she said, after another pause. 
“ I can^t think why you stop in the service. There’s 
nothing to be gained from it. Why don’t you get out of 
it, and go into something where you might make some 
money ?” 

For a moment he seemed to stiffen all over. Then he 
relaxed again and began to smooth her hand up and down. 
“ I can’t do that, little girl. You see, it’s my career. 
We’ve always been in the army or the sister service. Even 
when you are poor there are compensations.” 

“ Are there ?” 

“ Yes. One has one’s position, and one’s able to live 
like one’s position, so to speak. I like the work, I like the 
life. I couldn’t give it up.” 

“ I suppose not. It seems to me,” she said, wistfully, 
“ that if I had the carving of a boy’s career I would do 
everything I could to set him against the army. It’s never 
made worth the while of the men who go into it, as other 
professions are.” 


58 


A BREAK IN THE CHAIN 


“ What other professions ?” 

If you are a doctor ” 

'' Ah, yes, Harley Street is your goal, and perhaps 
Brook Street is your Mecca. If you are at the Bar, you 
work for ten, twelve, fifteen years for a shoeblack’s wages, 
just on the mere chance of getting there some day. If you 
go into the other walk of the law, you spend your life in 
a den, surrounded by musty papers, puzzling out devious 
ways and uninteresting niceties. No, give me the army. 
They say every private carries a field marshal’s baton in 
his knapsack.” 

“ But you have never been a private, Ozzie.” 

No ; and I daresay I shall never be a field marshal. 
But if I hang on I shall have command of the Black Horse 
in my turn, or of some other regiment equally good. Of 
course, I would give up a couple of years’ seniority to get 
command of my own regiment.” 

And when you have got it ?” 

“ When I have got it ? After that — the deluge.” 

Well, I may be wrong, — I daresay I don’t understand 
you, Ozzie, — but it seems to me a poor thing for a man 
to spend his life in courting the deluge.” 

No, no, no, no, little girl. It’s only the deluge as far 
as the Black Horse is concerned. There are other things 
to be had. But as to the question of this leave, I must go 
home for a bit. You quite understand that, don’t you?” 

“ Oh, quite.” 

“ You don’t think for a moment that I wouldn’t rather 
stay here?” 


59 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Not for a moment/^ 

Even then Mainwaring did not go away until some 
days after his leave had begun; but at last, possibly be- 
cause of strong letters from home, he went up to River- 
side and took adieu of little Joan, 

“ You’ll — that is to say, you are quite sure that you 
understand ? — you’ll” — he began — “ you’ll not let any 
other fellow come about you, and ?” 

“ Oh, Ozzie, do you think so little of me as that ?” 

“ Little ! God knows I think nothing little of you, ex- 
cept your absolute inches,” he said, earnestly. “ The fact 
is, the real truth is, I don’t want to go. I’d rather stay 
where I am.” 

“ Well, you’ve got to go. It’s no use spinning it out. 
You have to go ; there’ll be a row if you don’t. After all, 
Ozzie, the sooner you go the sooner you’ll get it over and 
come back again. You had better come into the drawing- 
room and see mother,” she said. 

“ No, no ; we are very well where we are. Don’t drive 
me into the drawing-room just now. Let’s stay here till 
somebody comes and turns us out.” 

They were then in the girls’ little sitting-room, a pleas- 
ant, chintz-draped room, which had been the scene of so 
many innocent flirtations and of so much girlish joy and 
merriment. 

“ Don’t go,” he said, drawing her gently down on to the 
wide old couch which stood near the fire ; it will be 
time enough when we are chivied out. I shan’t see you 
again for a month, or even more. It isn’t as if your 

6o 


A BREAK IN THE CHAIN 


mother were a Gorgon who would worry your life out if 
you looked at a man. She’s not like most mothers ; she’s 
got some feeling for a man.” 

“ Sometimes I think that mother has too much,” said 
Joan. “ So many boys of her own, you know, she’s lenient 
to all the other boys that come about the place. It would, 
perhaps, be better for us, Ozzie, if my people were a bit 
more strict and a little sharper in looking after us.” 

But he would have none of that, and he made her sit 
beside him before the roaring fire, and for nearly an hour 
they talked of the days which would come in the far-off 
by and by — at least, he talked, and she did not contradict. 

Little girl,” he said at length, suddenly, '' you are 
awfully down to-night.” 

Yes, I am down.” 

“ Because I’m going away ?” 

“ Well, of course I don’t like your going away, Ozzie, — 
you know that, — but it isn’t altogether for that. I’ve got 
a dreadful feeling upon me that nothing will ever be the 
same again.” 

Not as regards me?” 

Not especially as regards you. I have a dreadful 

feeling of — of Oh, no, it isn’t because you are going 

away for a few weeks, not at all ; it’s a different kind of 
feeling. However,” she said, drawing a long breath, 
'' don’t think about it, or talk about it. I daresay it will 
pass by and by. It’s been a gloomy day ; we’ve all been 
more or less in the dumps, every one of us. But, look 
here, Ozzie, you positively must come into the drawing- 

61 


LITTLE JOAN 

room now unless you want to have my people just know- 
ing everything.’’ 

Dear little girl,” said he, “ I want them to know 
everything. No man ever wanted publicity as badly or 
as fervently as I do. It’s just a question of filthy lucre, 
of l.s.d., or sheer want of means. Nothing else would 
keep me mum, as I have been ever since I’ve known you. 
Don’t go yet!” 

Yes, yes,” said she, firmly, it’s better we should go.” 

I know there are people in the drawing-room. I can 
hear them talking.” 

And mother knows that I’m not out, that I wasn’t 
going out this afternoon.” 

Very well,” said he. Then this is to be our last 
good-bye, our real good-bye. Little girl, don’t say it will 
never be the same again. Perhaps it won’t be, but — if it 
is better?” 

She brightened up at once. “If it is better, Ozzie, then 
we shall both be very happy, shan’t we ?” 

“ Then you’ll remember there is to be nobody else ?” 
he said. 

“ Take care there is nobody else on your side,” she 
retorted. 

“ My side !” he exclaimed with scorn. “ Why, I’ve got 
little or no choice in the matter. I never knew another 
woman that I’ve known on the banks of Isis.” 

She whisked him away into the drawing-room then, 
telling her mother that he had come to say good-bye be- 
fore he went on long leave. 


62 


A BREAK IN THE CHAIN 


Oh, are you going on leave ? Then we shan’t see you 
for two months,” said Mrs. Delamere, rather blankly. 

Not so long as that, Mrs. Delamere. I’m afraid I’ve 
already put in a few days of my leave.” 

“ Well,” said the good lady, hospitably, we shall miss 
you, all of us, everyone of us. Where are you going? 
Sit down there. Tell me all about it. What are you 
going to do? Who are you going to see? How are you 
going to amuse yourself? When will you come back 
again ?” 

And Mainwaring sat down and told her, very judi- 
ciously, everything that was fitting for her to know : that 
he was going home to see his mother ; that he had had a 
good many invitations, but they cost such a lot of money, 
entailed so much expense, that he did not intend to accept 
them; that he thought he should be back in a month’s 
time, and he hoped that nobody would have supplanted 
him with all the rest of the family at Riverside during his 
absence. 

My dear Mr. Mainwaring,” said Mrs. Delamere, in 
her kindest voice, recognizing, mother of sons as she was, 
by the hopeless, almost bitter ring in his voice as he spoke 
of money, pretty well how he was situated, my dear Mr. 
Mainwaring, when you come back again, you’ll find your 
place quite ready for you. I never like,” she went on, 
kindly, I never like to answer for very young people, 
for young people make all sorts of promises, take all kinds 
of vows, and they mean them, poor dears, — oh, yes, they 
mean them, — and then something comes to change every- 

63 


LITTLE JOAN 


thing, and the promises go to the wall. But with the old 
people there’s seldom or never any change. So I won’t 
answer for the others, Mr. Mainwaring; but for myself, 
you’ll find me here when you come back again.” 

Poor Mrs. Delamere ! She meant every word that she 
said, — every word, — and yet, a month later, when Main- 
waring came back to his regiment, there was no Mrs. 
Delamere to bid him welcome to Riverside. No, there 
was a sad, hushed house, and one room which was set 
apart for the time being, a sacred corner which would 
never be quite the same as an ordinary room to the Dela- 
mere family. For Mrs. Delamere, faithful wife, fond 
mother, true friend, and kindly, jovial companion, was 
gone, and her place would know her no more for ever. 

It was not until the day following his return that Main- 
waring heard a single word of what had happened ; not, 
indeed, until Billy Blake, looking very solemn, came up 
to barracks in time for officers’ call the following morning. 

“ Hullo, Billy !” Mainwaring exclaimed. “ How are 
you, old chap? How is everbody? You look very 
solemn.” 

Ozzie,” said Billy Blake, his eyes opening rather 
more widely than usual, haven’t you heard the news ?” 

“News? No, old chap. What news?” 

“ My wife’s mother died a week ago.” 

“ Good God ! you don’t say so ! How ? when ? where ?” 

“ Oh, she died of apoplexy — ill seven or eight hours. 
They’re all heart-broken.” 

“ Good God ! And well they may be. I’ll go there the 
64 


A BREAK IN THE CHAIN 


moment Fm free. I never heard a word. They must 
have thought me a heartless brute. I never heard a 
breath of it. Why didn’t they let me know?” 

Well, my dear chap, I don’t suppose it ever occurred 
to any of them to let you know.” 

No, I suppose not. It’s horrible. I’ll send my fellow 
down there at once.” 

And then there flashed upon him a remembrance of 
Joan’s last words — I feel as if we should never be the 
same again.” 


5 


65 


CHAPTER VIII 


A Black Time 


ID Joan’s prediction was right, for the household at 



Riverside never was the same after its mistress was 


taken out of it. The moment that Mainwaring walked 
into the house that afternoon he realized the change. It 
was as if all the warmth and light had been taken away. 

He was shown into the young ladies’ sitting-room, 
chiefly because not one of the family had entered the 
drawing-room since the morning that they had assembled 
there to wait until their mother was carried out of the 
house. It was tenantless, and he waited some minutes 
before anyone came to him. Then Norah Delamere 
came quietly in. She was dressed in deepest mourning, 
and she was pale, though perfectly self-possessed. 

It was kind of you to send a message down this 
morning,” she said. 

Oh, Miss Norah, I — I — never was so horrified in my 
life. I hadn’t heard a word until Billy told me when I 
met him in the orderly-room this morning. It’s abso- 
lutely horrible!” 

"‘You feel it so?” she said. Then you can think 
what it is for us. We are quite stunned. Some people 
whose mother was so much to them might make a noisy 
fuss. We wish we could — we’re just stunned.” 


66 


A BLACK TIME 


He pushed a chair up to the fire for her, and she sat 
down, resting her hands idly in her lap and looking at 
nothing. It was so sudden,” she went on, so hid- 
eously, horribly sudden. My father had left her in per- 
fect health to all outward appearance; when he came 
back less than three hours after, she did not know him. 
She did not know any of us after the first few minutes. 
One of my brothers doesn’t know yet.” 

‘‘ Which one is that ?” 

'^Eric. He’s making a railway in Australia. We’ve 
had an answer from his office, from his people, you know.” 

“ And your sisters?” said he, meaning Joan. 

My sisters? Yes, we are all just the same. It’s so 
queer without mother. She never went away, you know, 
only when we all went to the sea in the summer. Some- 
times she and father went to Paris or to London for a 
few days, but it was very rare, because he couldn’t get 
away. He holds so many offices. He’s going to give 
them all up.” 

“Is he, really? That seems a pity.” 

“Yes; but he seems to have got quite old these last 
few days. He says his head won’t think of all the things. 
Have you seen Maudie?” 

“ No, no. I came straight here the moment I was 
free.” 

“ That was very sweet of you. I wish I could say 
something else. I seem to have nothing to say. We are 
all like that. People keep coming — it’s awfully kind of 
them — but we haven’t anything to say.” 

67 


LITTLE JOAN 


It’s much better that you should see people, Miss 
Norah. If you shut yourself up, the effect may be very, 
very bad, both upon you and your father, and especially 
on your father. It’s much better for you to see people 
and talk about it, and — and — cry if you can.” 

“ We haven’t cried, any of us. I suppose we oughtn’t 
to; at all events we don’t.” She turned around as the 
door opened. What is it, William?” she asked. 

“ Miss Norah, Mrs. and Miss d’Egville are here. I 
showed them into the library. Miss Norah. I thought 

you would prefer to see visitors — er ” 

Yes, William, I’ll come. William has been so good,” 
she said to Mainwaring as the door closed softly behind 
the servant. Of course, he’s been with us a long time 
— years and years and years. But still, he’s so thought- 
ful. So sensible of him to show those people into the 
library. You won’t mind staying here until one of the 
others comes down, will you? We don’t want to have 
anything like a gathering of people.” 

“ No, no, of course not. Please don’t think about me. 
Miss Norah. I’ll stay here quite comfortably until one 
of the others comes down.” 

He was not, however, more than a few minutes alone, 
for Joan came in, — a Joan whom he did not know, 
very pale, very quiet, evidently in the same frozen, 
stunned state as her sister had said they all were. He 
had never seen her in black before, and now her deep 
mourning struck him as the most terrible garb he had 
ever imagined. 


68 


A BLACK TIME 


“ It was kind of you to send down, Ozzie,’^ she said, 
giving him her hand. I knew, of course, that you 
hadn’t heard. You see, I was right — it will never be the 
same again.’’ 

“ Your poor mother,” said he. 

Is it poor mother ? I don’t know. Of course, if she 
had had her way, she would have stayed where we are. 
Perhaps it’s better for her, but it’s horrible for us.” 

“And I hear your father — your sister tells me your 
father is so awfully broke.” 

“ Father? Yes, yes, he is broke. You see, they were 
everything to each other.” 

Her calmness struck him as being absolutely unnat- 
ural. Norah had been willing, even eager, to discuss the 
situation ; Joan was nothing of the kind. 

“ My poor little girl,” he said at last. 

The words were wrung from him in the depth of his 
emotion and pity. She turned and looked at him. “ Yes, 
we are very sad, all of us. As for me, I can never tell 
mother now anything about you. It never struck me 
that I wasn’t doing quite the right thing in not telling 
her everything as soon as I knew it.” 

“ But what was there to tell, little girl ?” 

“ Only the one great thing — that we love each other.” 

Mainwaring put out his two firm warm hands and took 
her cold nerveless ones into his grasp. “ Come and sit 
down here,” he said. “ It’s so uncomfortable standing 
about. I know exactly what you are thinking — that you 
ought to have told her, that you kept something back, 

69 


LITTLE JOAN 


and you don’t feel quite straight about it. I don’t think 
you need worry yourself. She knew.” 

‘‘You think so?” 

“ I don’t think about it; I’m certain of it.” 

“ But you didn’t say anything to her about it.” 

“ No, I didn’t say anything for the same reason that I 
didn’t go to your father and ask for you as soon as you 
and I had made up our minds. I didn’t tell her in so 
many words, because there was nothing to tell except 
the one thing. She wasn’t a fool, that mother of yours ; 
she was a woman with more than the usual amount of 
common-sense and tact and discernment. Of course she 
knew. Did she think I came here day after day to ad- 
mire the view up the river?” 

“ Yes, but it might have been one of the others. There 
was nothing definite.” 

“ Oh, nonsense ! If you could ask her now, she would 
tell you that she knows all about it. Get it out of your 
head that you deceived her, little girl; there was no 
deception — nothing of the kind. What passed between 
us concerned us and nobody else. If we wanted to take 
an irrevocable step like marriage, then it concerns your 
father and mother, your brothers and sisters, your rela- 
tions and friends, just as it does mine; but while we are 
as we are, it is our business, and concerns only our hearts. 
I wouldn’t think about it at all.” 

“ I have been thinking about it all the time,” said Joan. 

“Yes, yes, that’s natural enough. But it’s no good 
going on thinking about it, little girl, is it?” He 

70 


A BLACK TIME 


gave her no time to answer, but went on, having indeed 
the definite object in view of doing or saying anything 
which would tend to break down the terrible frozen state 
in which her grief had imprisoned her. You are glad 
to see me again?’' he asked, trying to draw her a little 
nearer to him. 

'' Yes, I’m always glad to see you ; you know that,” she 
said, putting up a hand, however, and pushing him gently 
back into his original place ; “ and I feel as if I oughtn’t 
to be.” 

You’ll get over that feeling,” he said. It’s only a 
feeling.” 

'' I’m not so sure of it.” 

“ You’ll be quite sure of it in a little time, dearest, 
when you have had the chance of thinking it quietly out, 
without the bias of this dreadful loss. Come, you mustn’t 
let yourself get morbid. It’s very hard upon your girls, 
but it can be nothing to any of you that it is to your 
father; and for his sake you ought to make an effort, 
you ought to try and get out of this ghastly calm. Come, 
have you nothing to ask me? Don’t you want to know 
what I’ve been doing, where I’ve been, whom I’ve seen, 
how the world is using me? Aren’t you even going to 
say really that you are glad to see me again ? Aren’t you 
going to give me a cup of tea ? I haven’t had a real cup 
of tea since the last time I was here.” 

You never can tell in these matters which rod it is that 
touches the rock of grief. Whether it was the remem- 
brance that her lost mother had been there on the occa- 

71 


LITTLE JOAN 


sion of his last visit, whether it was that her mother had 
made tea for him then, whether some inflection of his 
voice touched some tender chord in her heart, would be 
hard and impossible to say with certainty, but true it is 
that long before William had brought the tea-tray, the 
tears were running down Joan’s pale cheeks, and she was 
already one step on the road to consolation. 

And after that it became Oswald Mainwaring’s habit 
to turn into the gates of Riverside as regularly as he 
turned into the gates of the cavalry barracks. Not a day 
went by but he was, at some time or other, a visitor to 
Riverside, excepting of course those days when he was 
kept confined to barracks as orderly officer for the day. 
No one questioned his coming or going. Mr. Delamere 
he seldom saw, for he was, as he had been before, en- 
grossed in the duties of an enormous practice, having 
been persuaded, against his original desire, to keep his 
offices. Therein his friends were certainly wise, for had 
he given up the major part of his work, he would cer- 
tainly have felt his loss much more bitterly even than 
he did ; but he was seldom at home before dinner-time, 
and had absolutely no knowledge, and indeed very little 
thought, for who came and went to the house during 
his working hours. To the girls, one and all, it seemed 
a perfectly natural thing that Mainwaring should be in 
and out as he had been in their mother’s day. He was 
accustomed to speak of himself invariably as a poor 
man who had to forego all the better part of life. 
“Joan’s pal,” they called him, and somehow they all 

72 


A BLACK TIME 


came to call him “ Ozzie/' perhaps because Billy Blake 
did. 

Then there came another break in the household, for 
Eric Delamere wrote home from Australia begging 
Norah or Joan to come out and pay him a visit of a 
few months. '' I can't get home for at least a couple 
of years," he wrote, “ if then. Fm awfully knocked over 
by this blow, and never felt so homesick in my life. By 
all accounts North hasn’t pulled up as she might have 
done. The climate here is perfect, and the change 
would do her good. I have a most comfortable house, 
and would see to it that she has everything that she 
could desire. The benefit to me would be enormous. 
Do, please, think it out and arrange it among you." 

There was never any question as to which of the girls 
should go, any more than there was that one of them 
should, and just three months after her mother’s death, 
Norah Delamere left Riverside, and Joan became the 
eldest sister at home. This made Joan the mistress of 
everything. She was a good and earnest housewife, 
never forgetting her father’s interests, never forgetting 
his comforts, always remembering that she must fill her 
mother’s place as far as was possible. 

At the half-quarter Violet went back to school in 
London, and Agnes, who was not very strong, went 
south on a series of visits ; so Joan was left alone at 
Riverside with her father and Willy, who had just come 
of age, and who was working hard for an examination. 
Probably no one connected with the Delameres, except- 

73 


LITTLE JOAN 


ing William, knew how regular Mainwaring’s visits to 
Riverside were, and whatever William may have 
thought, it was not his place to speak. 

And so the days went on, and those two who had no 
prospects and no real hope of the future, went hand in 
hand further along the inextricable road which we call 
Love. 


74 


CHAPTER IX 


CHAPTER IX 

T he Delameres did not visit anybody during the first 
year after Mrs. Delamere's death. If the family 
had continued in an unbroken circle, it is probable that 
their friends would have, after a few months, persuaded 
them more or less out of the atmosphere of deep mourning 
by which they had surrounded themselves ; but Maudie 
was a little way further up the river at the Cottage, and 
although she received many callers, she was very soon 
occupied with a baby, and was entirely disinclined for 
visiting of any kind. Then Norah had gone to Aus- 
tralia ; Agnes went abroad with some friends, and was 
likely to spend the winter in Italy ; Violet was still at 
school ; and little Joan definitely vetoed any idea of 
taking the smallest part in society. So it came to pass 
that instead of Riverside being, as it had used to be, a 
meeting-place for all sorts and conditions of Blank- 
hampton folk, it was almost deserted by those who 
had gone there so much in former years. 

It is astonishing,” said one Blankhampton lady to 
another, “ how Mrs. Delamere’s death seems to have 
overshadowed that family. She was a very nice woman, 
I always liked her immensely, but she never struck me 
as being such an electric person that her loss should 
make the whole family break up, as it were.” 

75 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ It struck me the other day,” replied her friend, 
“ that Robert Delamere has grown quite into an old 
man.” 

“ Oh, yes, she was everything to him, poor soul ! And 
you know she was fifteen years younger than he was.” 

“ You don’t say so ! I had no idea of it.” 

“Yes, yes; Robert Delamere never looked his age 
until after he lost his wife.” 

“ I did hear,” said the other lady, “ that there was a 
chance of another wedding at Riverside.” 

“ Did you? You mean little Joan?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ That affair does hang fire. I hear he’s there, in and 
out, like a dog in a fair. I wonder why they don’t make 
a match of it?” 

“ Why, I suppose the usual thing — no money. I 
know my own girl said to me the other day, when I 
suggested that a certain very eligible offer she had when 
she was staying with my sister might be rather a good 
thing: 'Yes, mother darling, I know he’s rich, but he 
has a wandering eye. I couldn’t marry a man with a 
wandering eye !’ Somehow, there’s always something. 
These fascinating men never have two sixpences to rub 
together; and those who have whole bankrnotes to 
rustle in a girl’s face have a wandering eye or its 
equivalent.” 

So the lovely summer slipped by, and autumn took 
its place. It was what one might call an out-door 
autumn, clear and mellow, like the evening of a beau- 

76 


WILL IT BE YEARS? 


tiful life. It is hard to describe little Joan’s feelings at 
this particular epoch of her life. You have heard, my 
reader, of the man who sent for his doctor and said: 

I know that I am very ill. What is the matter with 
me? Tell me the plain truth. Keep nothing back.” 
'' The plain truth,” replied the doctor, is that you are 
suffering from cancer.” “ Is it curable ?” the man 
asked. “ No.” How long shall I live ?” A pitiful 
look came into the doctor’s eyes. “At the outside you 
will live two years,” he said. “ Very well,” replied the 
patient, “ then I’ll have roast pheasant and champagne 
for dinner every night of my life!” 

When you think of it, there is a great deal of every- 
day philosophy underlying that little story. Joan had 
grown into a philosopher. She was enjoying to-day 
what it was most unlikely she would be able to enjoy 
on the morrow. She never looked back; she never 
allowed herself to look forward ; to-day was everything 
— to-day was Oswald Mainwaring. 

She never put it into words ; neither did he. As soon 
as his duty for the day was over, he got out of what he 
called his “paint” into a tweed suit, and arrived half an 
hour or so later at Riverside. In the winter he had not 
hunted ; in the spring he neither shot while they were 
shooting or fished when the fishing began ; polo went 
to the wall ; cricket and foot-ball he voted a bore ; golf 
he declared was a game for old gentlemen ; society, 
such as the old city afforded, he eschewed altogether. 
Outside of the Delameres’ house he sought for nothing, 

77 


LITTLE JOAN 


and accepted no invitations excepting an occasional 
dinner which he could hardly get off. If Oswald Main- 
waring had been a free man, that is to say, if he had 
not been so choked with debt, if he had had even a 
modest income that was sure and certain, it is equally 
sure and certain that little Joan would have become his 
wife long before the time of which I am writing. In 
that case I should not have had the same story to tell. 
As it was, he was living, very much as she was living, 
in the present, ignoring the past, and resolutely keeping 
his thought in the future. 

The regiment was bound for India at the end of the 
year. Hunters had all been sold off ; indeed, there was 
scarcely a man in the regiment who had more than his 
two chargers. The team for the regimental coach had 
been sold also, and the coach itself had gone to London 
to be thoroughly overhauled and done up previous to 
their embarkation for India. 

The leave season that year began very early, as the 
Black Horse were not included in the manoeuvres, and 
every man in the regiment was pressing for an extra 
long leave to “ see and confer with friends at home 
and abroad prior to embarking for India.” It seemed 
both to Mainwaring and Joan as if he was on duty as 
orderly officer for the day almost once a week ; but it 
was not really so. In truth his heart was with her at 
Riverside, and all else in the world was stale compared 
with the joy of being with and near her. 

I feel that this is a very unsatisfactory description of 
78 


WILL IT BE YEARS? 


the progress of true love. Well, you know it never 
did run smooth. So far as those two were concerned 
the course of love ran smoothly enough; he loved her, 
and she loved him. It was not a question of love for 
a year, a week, a day — not a bit of it ; it was a question 
of a man and woman being affinities, twin halves of one 
soul ; and the element of roughness came in the simple 
but irresistible matter of ways and means. Oh, how 
hard it is when people, who would be perfectly happy 
if only their circumstances were easy, are fated to have 
this particular crumpled rose-leaf. Sometimes I hear 
people say: “Yes, if you were rich you might have a 
cancer.’^ Good heavens ! Is cancer a disease reserved 
only for the wealthy? Is it only those who are blessed 
with this world’s goods who know the pangs of disease, 
the pains of suffering, the misery of death by slow tor- 
ture? Are those who are poor, those who know not 
which way to turn for the next meal, exempt from the 
illnesses to which flesh is heir? If it is so, I have never 
known those people. And yet it does seem when love 
comes to be the question of the hour, as if money is 
most often given to those to whom love is as a sealed 
book. The man who buys himself a wife in the open 
market with almost as little shame as a planter buys 
himself a slave, knows nothing of love as it may be, of 
love as it is where it is freely given. And yet sometimes 
love is a gift which would be better withheld ; love is 
sometimes a pearl beyond price, useless to the recipient 
because there is no chance of giving it a suitable setting. 

79 


LITTLE JOAN 


Are things quite equal in this world? I don’t know. 
It didn’t seem so in the Delamere family. Maudie, for 
instance, had wedded the man of her heart. Hers had 
been one of those rare marriages in which no drawback 
was apparent ; and yet her own sister, though free, was 
irrevocably pledged in her soul to a man who would 
probably never be able to put a roof over her head. 
,Oh, no, things are not equal in any relation of life. 

Well, it happened one day, when the last leaves were 
falling from the trees on to the River Walk, that in 
talking over the cup of tea which Joan and Mainwaring 
were taking together in the girls’ sitting-room, she hap- 
pened to speak of the following year: 

We are not going to do it this year. I think prob- 
ably we shall next.” 

Mainwaring, who was just holding his tea-cup to his 
lips, put it down in the saucer with what was almost a 
bang. Little girl,” he said, '' has it ever struck you 
that next year I shan’t be here ?” 

I never thought about it,” said Joan. 

But it’s true, all the same. You’ll be here by your- 
self, or if not by yourself, I suppose some other fellow 
will be here in my place. I shall be grilling on India’s 
coral strand, cursing at life, fate, everything, and won- 
dering what I was brought into the world for.” 

‘'Why talk about it?” said Joan. She had grown 
white to her very lips, but she was calm and steady. 
“ Why talk about it ?” 

“ I never let myself think as long as I am awake. 

8o 


WILL IT BE YEARS? 

You said to me the other day that you thought I was 
looking very seedy, that you believed I didn’t get out 
enough in the open air. Do you know why I am look- 
ing so seedy?’’ 

No.” 

Because I haven’t slept for weeks. I go to bed 
tired out — I don’t go to bed till I am tired out — I get 
into my cot dead-beat, utterly done ; sleep for an hour 
like a log, and then I wake. I lie the rest of the night 
thinking, worrying, wondering how I am going to get 
through, wondering what I shall be like when the 
wrench is over and I am gone, and it will be years 
before I shall see you again.” 

Will it be years ?” said Joan. 

What else can it be? You don’t realize what a 
mucker I went in the years before I knew you. Oh, 
forgive me for using such a term ; it’s the only one that 
conveys what a fool I’ve been. I owe thousands and 
thousands of pounds, Joan. I — I couldn’t keep you like 
a workman can keep his bride. I never ought to have 
spoken to you. I — I’ve been a brute. I ought to set 
you free, to say : ' Look here, when I go away from this 
you are as free as air, to do as you like.’ There’s 
nothing to look for, nothing to hope for, nothing to be 
gained by waiting. I am a fraud, Joan. I have no right 
to be in a cavalry regiment, let alone be such a fool as 
to want to cut a dash among my fellows. I wasn’t 
brought up right. I was brought up in an atmosphere 
of sham and pretence. They’d have done better if they 

6 8i 


LITTLE JOAN 


had put me into a shop or an office. I should never 
have known you; but I thank God that I did. But you 
can’t say the same. I’m nothing but a blight on you. 
I’m afraid I’ve shut the sunshine out of your life. I 
only hope — and it’s hoping against hope — that when it 
is all over, you’ll find you don’t care as much as I have 
tried, God help me ! to make you care.” 


82 


CHAPTER X 


Cruel to be Kind 

T he effect of Oswald Mainwaring’s words to Joan 
were to make her heart grow cold within her. It 
seemed to her that she had already tasted of the bitter- 
ness of death. And yet she made no great sign of what 
she felt. An onlooker might well have believed that 
she did not care very much, for she was to all outward 
appearances perfectly calm and collected. 

It does seem rather as if we ought to have thought 
of all this before,” she said, very quietly. However, 
the mischief is done, and it cannot be undone. I don’t 
know if, for my own part, I wouldn’t rather have things 

as they are. After all, we have loved each other ” 

We do love each other,” he broke in. 

“Yes, yes,” and a little smile crept about her mouth, 
“ yes, we do love each other. I — I hardly know how I 
am going to say what I want to — what I mean to say. 

When you go away with the regiment ” 

“ I am not going away with the regiment,” he inter- 
rupted. “ I begin my leave next month. I go to see 
my mother in Florence ; I join the ship at Malta, or at 
Port Said — probably at Port Said.” 

“ Well, when you go away next month, by all that’s 
sensible and just we must come to an end of the 
episode.” 


83 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Joan !” he cried. 

It’s no use saying Joan in that tone. There’s nothing 
else to be done that I can see. I shall have some day a 
few thousand pounds — five or six, even seven. I — oh, 
you must forgive me for speaking quite plainly. I quite 
understand what you mean when you say that we ought 
to be free. Well, we will be free. You shall go away 
from Blankhampton, and then you can look for your 
heiress at your leisure.” 

I never said that.” 

No, you never said it. It’s the natural inference.” 

I have never told you that you could go and sell 
yourself to the highest bidder.” 

No, there is not quite the same necessity. I shall 
always have enough to live on. There are a great many 
of us; there’ll always be somebody that I can make my 
home with. If I didn’t choose to marry, and I was the 
last that didn’t marry, I should have plenty of brothers 
and sisters to share my time out with. I shall never 
know the actual pinch of poverty. With you, it is differ- 
ent; it is your only way out. It is a chance; about the 
only chance you’ve got as far as I can judge by what 
you have told me about yourself.” 

And you’ll promise me ” 

“ No, I’ll make no promises, and I’ll ask none. We are 
both to be free as air to do what we judge best under 
our own particular circumstances — you to look for your 
heiress ; I to live on in my present life unless something 
should happen to change it.” 

84 


CRUEL TO BE KIND 


What kind of a something 

'' Well, it might be — a husband. No, don’t look like 
that. Em not of an unfaithful nature. I haven’t, just 
at this moment, any intention of marrying even a million- 
aire. The idea would have no attraction for me.” 

‘‘You’ll write to me?” 

“ No, I don’t think I’ll write to you. It would be like 
a person condemned to be hanged asking for a month’s 
respite. He’d be hanged a thousand times during that 
month. I’d rather draw the curtain down tight. Believe 
me, it will hurt less than drawing it down a little way, 
and letting it come down with a run at the end. Oh, I 
know what you think. You think that I have no soul, 
that I have no heart, that I haven’t any pity, or any 
romance, or even much love. Well, all the better if you 
do think so. It will make it easier for you. It’s no use 
mincing matters. We’ve an ugly fence before us, you 
and I, and the cooler we are when we negotiate it the 
better landing we shall make on the other side.” 

“ I think you are cruel, Joan.” 

“ Do you think I am? I am cruel only to be kind. If 
you have got an ugly fence that you must take, and it is 
a leap in the dark, well, take it with a good heart and a 
steady nerve. If you land in the ditch with a broken 
back and your horse killed under you, well, you have 
done your best. The end will be quick and compara- 
tively painless. If you land high and dry on the other 
bank, you have got a chance of seeing the end of the run 
and being in at the death; and if you are going just to 

85 


LITTLE JOAN 


get a ducking and to spoil your habit and your hat and 
your day’s run, there is a merciful hot bath a little fur- 
ther on that will leave you not much the worse for wear. 
Oh, don’t talk to me about being cruel to each other. It 
won’t make any difference to the end, and we’ve nearly 
got up to the fence.” 

“ And you won’t write to me ?” 

‘‘ I don’t think I’ll write to you. I have never written 
to you — a little note, three lines scrawled on a card; I 
don’t call that writing. I have never been in the habit 
of either sending or receiving letters from you, and I 
don’t want to begin it.” 

“ And you think under some circumstances you may 
marry ?” 

“ I may. But if I do, you will know that I have put 
the past right out of my mind. Don’t write to me or com- 
municate with me. If you should one of these days see 
my marriage in the paper, it won’t be there unless I have 
entirely forgotten to-day. As for you, I hope your 
heiress will be nice, kind, even pretty. Mind you are 
good to her. It will not be her fault that she does not 
exist in my body; she is not responsible for the fact 
that all these many months you have been wishing I 
were she. Don’t pay her out for having the money that 
I lack.” 

‘‘ You talk as if she was a veritable person, as if she 
was a foregone conclusion. You — you — break my heart, 
Joan.” 

“Do I? I don’t mean to do that. We have come to 
86 


CRUEL TO BE KIND 


a point of plain speaking. It’s no use pretending the 
fence isn’t a big one and an ugly one and a hard one; 
one we know nothing about. We are hunting over new 
ground with a strange pack. We don’t know the ways 
of anyone or anything ; it’s all terra incognito to us, and 
we shan’t know anything about it until we’ve gone over 
that fence. Don’t let’s go back; don’t say that if you 
had done this or that I should have been different now. 
If you had done the other, things would have been the 
same. We have done our best; we have made the most 
of our time ; in a way we have had a good time, you and 
I. If you had that shop you were talking about, I would 
have waited for you; I would have begged and prayed 
you not to leave me; I would have gone against my 
people; and I’d have looked after the counter when you 
were going round getting the orders. But you don’t 
keep a shop; you are in the Black Horse, you are over 
head and ears in debt, you have no chance of paying it. 
It’s no use telling you to go and work. What are you to 
work at? You have put all your eggs in one basket; 
that doesn’t bring in victory to many people. I wish you 
would go now. I — I — don’t want to go on talking in 
this strain. But I can’t just talk about nothing when my 
mind is full of what is just ahead. Don’t come and see 
me to-morrow ” 

“ I shall be on duty.” 

“ Well, then you can’t come. You can come the next 
day about five. Then don’t let’s talk about it any more ; 
don’t let’s die a hundred deaths. Let’s be as we have 

87 


LITTLE JOAN 

been, and as we would be if there wasn’t that fence 
ahead of us.” 

“ You don’t mean — you — you — you’re not sending me 
away? You — ^Joan!” His tone was one of piteous re- 
proach. 

“ Oh, you are foolish ! You are so like a man. I sup- 
pose it’s natural. I don’t want you to remember me all 
broken up and weak and feeble, crying like a child for the 
moon it cannot reach; I want you to remember me as 
always the same Joan, — the Joan who hadn’t much money, 
but still who had plenty of pluck ; the Joan who cared for 
you, loved you too much to want to sacrifice you entirely 
for herself ; the Joan who would have worked and toiled 
and slaved and died for you if the process would have 
brought you the advantage of a ha’penny. Come, it is 
nearly seven o’clock. Don’t let the others come and 
find you here. If they do, and there’s any little small 
talk, I shall certainly go into hysterics, or scream, or 
do something ridiculous, something that you and I 
will both be sorry for; something that will give us 
away.” 

She was standing on the great skin rug before the 
fire. She looked very small, but very much in earnest, 
as she faced him. As for Mainwaring, he was white with 
pain, frozen with an agony which was almost dull. He 
had put off the day of reckoning so long, always hoping, 
praying, yearning for something to happen, a something 
for which he had no substantial ground of hope. And 
now it was like a new pain, a new wrench, a new diffi- 


CRUEL TO BE KIND 


culty ; and she would not give him time even to think 
about it. 

He put his hands out and grasped her arms above the 
elbows, drawing her slowly towards him. You do love 
me?’’ he asked. 

Oh, do you doubt it ? Best if you can. Best if you 
can blot me out, cut me off, tear your hear^ Dut by the 
roots. Till the field afresh for the heiress. She will be 
very nice. She’ll make you a free man ; she’ll make the 
way easy, the road clear. I can do none of these things.” 

But you can love me.” 

“ Well, we can’t live upon love — not in the Black 
Horse. We can’t live upon love in the life that you and 
I have been used to. It wouldn’t last. If we had a shop 
— ^but we haven’t a shop. We can’t open a shop now. 
Oh, say good-bye for to-night!” 

He bent his head down to hers. For one moment she 
clung to him, then with all her small force she thrust him 
away. “ Not again I We have had the worst of our 
parting. Go, and God bless you! Good-bye. The day 
after to-morrow.” 

She turned and looked into the fire as he moved 
towards the door. There he stopped and looked back. 
The little figure in the black gown was quite quiet, the 
hands folded lightly together, the head a little bent, the 
serious eyes fixed upon the ruddy heart of the glowing 
coals in the grate. He stopped irresolute, stretched out a 
hand, drew it back, made a step towards her, then softly 
opened the door and as softly closed it behind him. Not 

89 


LITTLE JOAN 


so softly but that she heard it, heard him cross the hall, 
knew that he was putting on his coat, heard him take his 
stick out of the stand, heard the gentle opening and 
closing of the outer door. 

It was all over. Oswald Mainwaring was gone. 


90 


CHAPTER XI 


Gone Away 

P erhaps you may have noticed in love-stories how 
frequently the heroine gives way to a storm of pas- 
sionate sobs and tears. I don’t know why this should have 
come to be the accepted, or almost the accepted, fact for 
conduct under such circumstances. As a rule, people who 
pass through those moments which leave an indelible 
mark upon the heart, and even upon the soul, seldom find 
the relief of tears. Even those whose tears gush forth 
readily at some tale of pathos and woe, who weep freely 
at a theatre, or cry copiously over a book, find no such 
relief when their own circumstances call most urgently 
for it. If Joan Delamere had been a proper heroine, she 
would have collapsed as soon as she heard the outer door 
shut and knew that Mainwaring was gone, and would 
have wept far into the night, when she would have fallen 
asleep from sheer exhaustion, and so would have awoke 
to a realization of the bitter truth when the sun was high 
in the heavens the following morning. 

Poor little Joan was not that kind of heroine. For full 
five minutes she never moved from where she stood. 
Then she sat down very quietly in a corner of the big 
couch on which she and Mainwaring had been sitting 
for the past two hours, and leaning back among the 
cushions she wondered blankly what she was going to 


91 


LITTLE JOAN 


do with her life. The thought of tears never came to 
her ; she had no desire for them. She was like a person 
who had lost her way, like one walking along a pleasant 
country road who found herself suddenly in a cid de sac, 
with high hedges on either side and a dead blank wall 
ahead. There was no getting over the dead blank wall. 
It was a full stop. The hedge on the right hand was 
dense and prickly ; that on the left was less dense, 
although it seemed to her that it was made of poisonous 
plants. You can never retrace your steps along the path- 
way of life. You may turn to the right or to the left, or 
you can go right ahead — there is no going back. 

Well, she could go neither forward nor backward. 
She had the choice between the right hand and the left. 
The left meant clinging with might and main to a shadow 
— oh, to something worse than a shadow! The right 
meant forcing her way through, regardless of pain and 
difficulty, to where she might find green meadows and 
sunshine if she only tried hard enough. Well, the left 
hand, with its regrets, its desires, its yearnings, its hopes 
foredoomed to lingering death, its efforts foredoomed to 
failure, she would put on one side as being unworthy of 
a proud spirit. Her only way was to turn to the right, 
and as she sat there, quiet and alone, she planned out all 
the immediate future. 

So by the time her father and Willy came home from 
the office, she knew exactly what she was going to do 
and to say. They never noticed that there was any 
change in her. Men don’t — at least, fathers and brothers 


92 


GONE AWAY 


don’t. Mr. Delamere shook himself free of his office 
cares, and spoke in what, for him, was quite a brightened 
tone. Willy remarked that it was bitterly cold outside, 
and said he believed they were going to have the hardest 
winter that had been known for years. They had never 
dressed for dinner since Mrs. Delamere’s death, although 
it had been a regular custom of the house up to that sad 
event. During the progress of the meal Joan was very 
quiet. She talked a little on subjects of utter indiffer- 
ence to herself, but which she thought would interest 
her father. She did not feel there was any necessity to 
give way, and it was not until they had gone into the 
morning-room, and Willy had betaken himself off on 
some quest of his own, that Mr. Delamere noticed how 
very pale his daughter was. 

“You are not very well, Joan?” he said. 

“ No, Dad, I am not very well.” 

“ You want a change.” 

“ Yes, I was going to speak to you about it. If you 
don’t mind, I should like to go away for a fortnight or 
so. Could you get on?” 

“ Oh, yes, child.” 

“ I could get Maudie to come and stay with Billy and 
the baby. They would keep you alive.” 

“ Where are you going?” 

“ I should like to go to Aunt Geraldine. I feel I must 
have a little change from Blankhampton. You know, 
I’ve been here practically without a break ever since 

Norah went away ; and if Maudie were with you ” 

93 


LITTLE JOAN 


Oh, if Maudie were with me, I should be all right. 
It will be a treat to me to have her. And they give up 
their house at the end of the month, don’t they?” 

“ Yes, she was coming home in any case, you know ; 
she mentioned it yesterday. So I’ll go and see Maudie 
presently. You needn’t trouble to stir out. I’ll take 
Fanny with me. And then I could go to-morrow.” 

“ To-morrow ?” 

Yes, I should like to go to-morrow, just for a fort- 
night.” 

Such things are easily arranged. Before Joan went to 
her bed that night she had arranged every detail of her 
intended flight from home. 

“ If you don’t mind, Maudie,” she said, when, after 
her talk with her father, she called on her sister, I’d 
rather Billy didn’t mention up at the barracks that I’m 
going away.” 

“ You haven’t quarrelled with Ozzie Mainwaring, 
have you?” asked Maudie, looking at her sharply. 

Oh, no, not quarrelled.” 

He’s in love with you, Joan.” 

Is he? Perhaps. We can’t live on honey and air, 
you know. There wouldn’t be much nourishment in it. 
We can’t marry, and sometimes a parting is almost a 
tragedy.” 

I understand.” The eldest sister looked pitifully 
down from her superior height upon Joan. He oughtn’t 
to have done it, Joan,” she said at last. 

Well, perhaps he oughtn’t. Perhaps I oughtn’t. It’s 
94 


GONE AWAY 


no use going into that now, is it? I want a change. I 
want to get away. He’s on duty to-morrow. I want to 
be gone by the time he is free. You needn’t give him my 
address. I don’t want him coming to Aunt Geraldine’s 
after me. It’s only prolonging it. When you have got 
to use the knife, it is just as well to cut deep and get it 
all over at once. No, don’t look at me like that. I’m 
not a broken-hearted, deserted little person who’s going 
about wearing green and white for the rest of her life. 
Don’t think it for a moment.” 

'' My dear,” said Mrs. Blake, I think I know pretty 
well how things are with you both. There’s no doubt 
about what Oswald Mainwaring feels. I wish now that 
we had decided to go to India instead of shirking it by 
exchanging. It would have been better for you, and 
better for him.” 

“No, I don’t agree with you. It might have prolonged 
it a little. What’s the good of prolonging it? We can’t 
live on nothing. We can’t wait until we are old — at 
least, I don’t think it’s fair for a man to do it. And so 
I want to go away. You understand? I think it’s better. 
And you’ll tell Billy? And now I’ll go back. I have a 
heap to do to-night before I go to bed, and I want to 
catch the two-o’clock train to town to-morrow. You 
quite understand, Maudie? You’ll come with Billy and 
the baby, and all your goods and chattels, and you’ll take 
care of Dad until I come back again.” 

“ But when you come back ?” asked Maudie. 

“ Well, he’s going to Florence to see his mother. She 
95 


LITTLE JOAN 


lives there. He’s going to stay with her a little while, 
and then get across the Mediterranean and catch the regi- 
ment up at Port Said. And now I’m going, Maudie. 
Good-bye, my dear. You’ll come down and see me in 
the morning, won’t you?” 

“ Oh, yes, certainly. There’ll be some things I can 
help you with, I daresay. I’ll come as soon as Billy has 
gone to barracks.” 

So the sisters parted, and Joan, accompanied by the 
maid Fanny, went back to Riverside. She was quite 
cheerful, told Fanny exactly what she wanted her to do, 
and indeed a good many of her things were packed before 
she sought her bed that night. 

Even then she showed no signs of giving way. She 
had made up her mind to take a certain course, a definite 
line, and she allowed nothing that had happened to come 
in between her and what she was determined to do. 

She got into bed rather late, and if she did not sleep, 
at least she did not weep. And in the early morning she 
rose and, turning on the gas fire, she put away in an 
inner drawer of her wardrobe every little trifle that could 
serve to remind her of Mainwaring : all his letters, care- 
fully tied up in packets, — and by letters I mean little 
notes written from barracks about the affairs of the 
moment, — ^bottles of scent, queer odds and ends that he 
had given her from time to time; a dozen photographs 
of himself, a programme of the Black Horse sale of 
hunters and chargers the previous spring; two or three 
dance programmes, a couple of stars taken off his uni- 

96 


GONE AWAY 


form, a few withered flowers, and a little gold thimble 
with “ Joan” engraved upon it. A pitiful collection, but 
then all lovers’ gifts are pitiful when the lovers have 
come face to face with a blank wall. 

Joan locked them away with a resolute hand. She 
was like a being possessed ; and yet in all her resolution, 
running through all her determination of spirit, there 
was one thread of sheer cowardice — the dread of another 
parting from Oswald Mainwaring. 

It was just twenty-seven hours after Joan left Blank- 
hampton that Oswald Mainwaring came briskly down the 
road leading from the barracks to the town, and turned 
in at the accustomed gates. It didn’t strike him that 
anything had happened. The house was just the same. 
William showed him into the morning-room, all redolent 
of the presence of the girl he loved. He waited a few 
minutes, wondered impatiently why she was so long in 
coming, and then the door opened and Mrs. Blake came 
into the room. 

“ Good-morning, Ozzie,” she said, quite cheerfully, 
though to tell the truth her heart was going like a steam- 
engine from sheer fright. You know Joan is away?” 

I don’t understand,” he said, blankly. 

“Joan’s gone away for a time. She went yesterday. 
Didn’t you know?” 

“ This is the first I have heard of it.” 

“ Oh, well, she left a letter for you. Let me see — 
what did I do with it? Ah, here it is. I put it in here 
to be ready for you when you came.” As she spoke, she 
7 97 


LITTLE JOAN 


took a letter addressed in Joan’s handwriting from an 
old lacquer box which stood upon the table near to the 
big couch. “ She’ll tell you all about it. She had to go. 
She really wasn’t well. Father was quite uneasy about 
her. Billy and I and Baby have come to stay here for a 
few weeks — oh, for the rest of our time in Blankhampton, 
in fact. You’ll have some tea?” 

“ Thanks, yes.” 

“ Such horrid cold weather,” Mrs. Billy Blake went on ; 
and the Cottage is such a cold house. I’m so thankful 
to be at home again for a little time. Yes, William, I 
would set it just here. By the bye, I don’t want to see 
any visitors this afternoon, William.” 


98 


CHAPTER XII 


A Mighty Item 

I T was a hideous half-hour which Oswald Mainwaring 
and Mrs. Billy Blake spent together in the morning- 
room at Riverside. As soon as Maudie handed Joan’s let- 
ter to Mainwaring, he, with a fine air of carelessness, put 
it away in the breast-pocket of his tweed jacket. He was 
longing to know the meaning of it all, to see what reason 
Joan had given, to get the worst over, and there he had 
to sit talking to Mrs. Billy Blake of all people in the 
world — Mrs. Billy, who didn’t interest him the least little 
bit, excepting so far that she was Joan’s sister. 

If it was a painful half-hour for him, it was equally 
so for her, for, although she did not know what was in 
her sister’s letter, she had gathered fairly well two even- 
ings before what was in her sister’s heart. She was sorry 
for him, and, being most happily and advantageously 
married herself, she was more than sorry for her. She 
knew by that quick instinct which all women have that 
Joan’s letter was absolutely burning a hole in his pocket; 
that it was pressing against his heart like a lump of lead ; 
and yet she gave him tea, and made conversation, and then 
gave him more tea, and cut more cake, and they made 
believe that there was nothing out of the ordinary on foot. 
Oh, dear, the games of make-believe that go on in this 

99 


LofC. 


LITTLE JOAN 


world ! The people who care and pretend that they don’t 
care; the patient martyrs who hide their suffering as 
gallantly as did ever the little Spartan boy who smiled 
while the fox was gnawing his vitals. 

At last he got away out of her presence, feeling as if he 
had come to the last point of his endurance. He did not 
go back to barracks ; on the contrary, as he turned out 
of the gates of Riverside he went in the other direction, 
turning again sharply to the right and taking a narrow 
lane which led beside the Riverside property from the 
high road down to the banks of the river. Being in mid- 
winter, the river walk was entirely deserted. Mainwaring 
walked sharply along until he came to a seat, and there 
he sat down and tore open the letter which contained 
Joan’s explanation. 

It was a pitiful epistle. “ I can’t exist through the next 
fortnight,” she wrote, “ if I am to see you every day. It 
would be like taking a condemned man every day, be- 
tween sentence and execution, that he might look upon 
the place where he would eventually suffer. So I am 
going away. You will think me cowardly, perhaps ; and 
yet I feel that you will understand. Remember, I ask 
nothing of you, look for nothing, scarcely hope for any- 
thing. Don’t write to me. You can leave me a letter at 
home, so that I shall find it when I come back. Don’t ask 
them for my address, please, I beg of you. I feel that 
there is going to be no future for us — can be no future. 
It will always be easier for both of us in after years to 
feel that we parted without tears, almost without pain. 


100 


A MIGHTY ITEM 


That has yet to come. I needn’t make any pretence to you 
of what I wish for you. You must know that just as well 
as if you were inside my heart. Whatever you do in the 
future, I shall never reproach you. I shall never think 
of you excepting with the truest and sincerest affection. 
To the end of time I shall be your faithful friend, 

“ Joan.” 

“ Faithful !” — “ affection !” — “ sincere !” He sat like a 
man turned to stone, wondering in a dull, dim kind of way 
why this hideous blow should have fallen upon him. 
After all, she did not care. She could sit down and pen 
a letter that was almost like a sermon! It hurt him. 

Whatever he did, she would never reproach him I” That 
meant when he had sold himself. 

“ I’ll never sell myself I” he cried out aloud ; and he 
stamped his foot upon the frozen ground, and down in 
his heart he stamped a vow that, come weal come woe, 
he would go on to the end as he was. 

Of course, he had always said to his people, as to his 
intimate friends : “ I’ve got to marry money, you know. 
What’s a poor devil to do who hasn’t got enough for him- 
self? Look out for a wife that has plenty.” It had 
seemed to him in years gone by quite a natural thing, a 
kind of instinct of self-preservation. Coming from Joan — 
oh, it was sacrilege I 

He turned to the letter again. But she had never said 
it ! What she said was, “ Whatever you do, I shall never 
reproach you.” Perhaps she was only trying to make 

lOI 


LITTLE JOAN 


him No, it couldn’t be that. Was she mercenary? 

Was it that she did not want to bind herself? Oh, it was 
a dreadful, dreadful thought, but it was not a thought 
that seemed to fit with Joan in any way. 

Then he took the letter out of his pocket and read it 
again. So he was not to see her — not to write to her ; he 
might write so that she could receive his letter when she 
came back. Then he fell to admiring her, to thinking 
what pluck she had, what grit; thinking how delicious 
and brave she was, how steadfast of heart, how different 
to other girls, how unselfish. Yes, the most unselfish girl 
he had ever met in his life, because she showed quite 
plainly that she cared more for him than for herself. 

He might write to her when she came back. Well, he 
would leave a letter for her, and would tell her in it quite 
plainly that it was no use her trying to palm him off on 
some nebulous heiress. Heiresses might be very fine and 
large, blit they were not for him, most indisputably not 
for him. 

At last Mainwaring got up from the seat and turned 
his steps in the direction of Blankhampton. He went by 
way of the river, passing along the quaint water-way and 
up the steps by the bridge which led into St. Thomas’s 
Street. In that principal thoroughfare he met several 
people he knew, and made several purchases ; told every- 
one that he was going away in a few days, and that he 
was going out to Italy to see his mother before he went 
to India. He carefully said nothing of his plan to join 
the ship at Port Said, and finally he went back to bar- 


102 


A MIGHTY ITEM 


racks in quite a virtuous glow of good feeling with 
himself. 

He was poor, his thoughts ran, but he was true to- 
wards the girl he loved. He had, in idle moments of the 
past, regarded the idea of marrying for money as a per- 
fectly natural thing, but when such an action came to be 
weighed in the balance against even the most abject pov- 
erty with the girl of his heart, there was no hesitation, no 
holding back on his side. If the worse came to the 
worst, she could come out to him. They could live out 
there right enough on what he had. 

Dear little soul ! He quite understood her feeling of 
wanting to hasten the blow of parting instead of dragging 
it out in what would be worse than slow torture. Her 
desperate action in literally running away only served to 
prove to him how entirely and deeply she loved him. 
After all, what did anything matter while they loved each 
other ? What difference would it make whether they had 
one thousand a year or two? Whether they had two 
rooms or six? Whether they had one servant or ten? 
Fundamentally, no difference; actually, a mere discom- 
fort not for a single moment to be weighed in the balance 
against such a mighty item as love. He forgot his many 
debts, his extravagant tastes, his desire for the best of 
everything, the position which would need a certain 
amount of keeping up; he forgot everything excepting 
Joan herself. 

He was still thinking hard over a pipe when his servant 
came in. 


103 


LITTLE JOAN 

“ Are you going to dine at mess to-night, sir ?” he 
asked. 

“ Of course,’’ was Mainwaring’s reply. 

“ Getting very late, sir,” said the man ; “ you haven’t 
ten minutes to change in.” 

“ All right,” said Mainwaring, putting his pipe down 
on the little table beside his chair, “ I’ll change at once. 
Why didn’t you put out my other mess uniform ?” 

“ Guest-night, sir.” 

“ But you have put out my old things.” 

“ No, sir ; these are your best,” said the man. 

Oh, I must have a new mess uniform before I go 
away. Remind me when I go to London.” And then he 
remembered with a pang that if he meant to be econom- 
ical in the future he wouldn’t be able to have his various 
uniforms kept up to the very last state of freshness by 
having always a new one for special occasions. 

It was the beginning. Well, he would have to have a 
new mess uniform for India. Years would pass before he 
would have the opportunity of getting any renewals. 
And he owed his tailor such a devil of a bill ; moreover, 
he wouldn’t be able to pay even a farthing on account, 
either to his tailor or to any other tradesman to whom 
he owed money. His bills in London were something 
enormous; his bills even in modest little Blankhampton 
would tot up to a goodly amount. He hated doing it, but 
he knew that there was only one way in which he could 
get out of town, and that was to go round the day before 
his leave began and tell the various tradespeople to send 


104 


A MIGHTY ITEM 


in their bills immediately. Then he would go off to Italy, 
and Blankhampton and London would know him no more 
for some years at least. 

As he went along the corridor, his thoughts were still 
occupied in this manner. He stopped under a glaring 
gaslight and looked down at his mess jacket. This was 
his best. Yes, it was distinctly off its first bloom; indeed, 
it was something more than off its first bloom ; he might 
almost call it beginning to get shabby. And it was his 
best. How was he to go to India without a decent mess 
uniform, where he would have to be continually dining 
with governors and other gorgeous persons? Perhaps, 
though, he wouldn’t wear mess dress for such a purpose, 
and his full-dress tunic had been new within the last 
three months. 

Still, it was no use worrying about it. He would have 
a few days in London. He would go and order a mess 
uniform and get it fitted on, and if the people didn’t 
choose to deliver it without the money, that was their 
look-out; he would be out of reach and need not worry 
himself. 

Yet it was a very curious state of mind in which he 
found himself that evening, one in which he hung bal- 
anced between necessity and desire. As yet necessity 
was not weighing down the one side of the scales, and 
desire hung very heavy on the beam. Of course, he 
couldn’t give up Joan. Dear little Joan ! That was im- 
possible. It was a contingency not to be thought of for 
a single instant. And when he was back again in his 

105 


LITTLE JOAN 


rooms, stretched out comfortably in a long chair, with 
a whiskey-and-soda beside him, and his trusty pipe in 
his mouth, he told himself that he had come to a con- 
clusion. 

It’s awful rot what people say,” his thoughts ran as 
he watched the smoke go curling up towards the ceiling. 

How does the old saw run ? ' When poverty walks in 
at the door, love flies out at the window.’ What rot! 
Here am I, over head and ears in debt, no prospects, no 
chance of ever being much better off, and I am more in 
love with Joan than ever I was before.” 


io6 


CHAPTER XIII 


A Very Long Good-bye 

I N one of Joan’s letters to her sister, Mrs. Billy Blake, 
was enclosed a slip of paper. On this Joan had 
written : “ Let me know when Oswald Mainwaring has 
gone away. Then I shall come home.” Mrs. Billy dis- 
creetly burned the slip of paper, and, faithful to her 
sister’s trust in her, she advised little Joan when Oswald 
Mainwaring had actually left Blankhampton. 

“ No, I shan’t see you again, Mrs. Billy,” he said to her 
when he went down to Riverside the day before his leave 
began, because I’m going to join the regiment at Port 
Said. I think I told you. I shall hope to see you again 
later on, when I come back again. I wish you had been 
coming out with us.” 

“ So do I,” said she, heartily. But Billy wouldn’t. 
Billy never wanted to go to India; and of course it 
doesn’t matter to me where I am.” 

I hope you’ll like the new regiment as well as the 
old one. I hope Billy will like it,” he added. 

I doubt it. A change of regiment is like a change of 
wife — it’s a big thing to undertake.” 

You’ll write to me sometimes, Mrs. Billy?” he asked. 
“ I’ll write, Ozzie, with pleasure. Billy is sure to write 
to you. You are his greatest friend.” 

107 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ I hope he will ; and you, too. And I hope you’ll be 
glad to see me when I come back again. It may be some 
years first. I want to do what I can towards paying my 
debts off. Oh, Mrs. Billy, if only somebody could rise 
up who would warn youngsters, when they first go into 
the army, against the hideousness of getting into debt !” 

She put her hand out and laid it on his arm. “ Cheer 
up, Ozzie,” she said. “ You never know your luck. Some- 
thing may turn up. You may come into a title, or a for- 
tune, or light on your feet somehow. Anyway, cheer up.” 

“ It’s awfully hard,” said he, “ to cheer up when you 
are leaving everything you most value in the world be- 
hind you, and you are leaving it on an uncertain footing. 
However, it’s no use snivelling. I’ve got myself to thank 
for the hole I’m in, and myself to blame for it.” 

“ Well,” said Mrs. Billy, who, much as she liked her 
husband’s friend, was rather angry with him than other- 
wise for having entangled her sister’s affections, “ well, 
it’s a good thing you can’t go round blaming somebody 
else. I always feel that with old-fashioned housewives, 
who make such a deadly row when one of their servants 
breaks a piece of china or glass. It’s surprising the ex- 
cuses they find for themselves under like circumstances, 
and what was a deadly and premeditated offence in the 
one case becomes the most hideous accident in the other. 
You got into debt ; I suppose you had a good time in the 
past ; I hope it was worth it.” 

It wasn’t,” said he. It’s never worth it when it’s 
gone by.” 

io8 


A VERY LONG GOOD-BYE 


That's as may be," said Mrs. Billy. ‘‘ I’d like you 
better myself if you owned up that you never looked back. 
I hate people who look back on what’s done and cannot 
be undone. Look here,’’ she said ; “ of course, it’s no use 
our pretending to each other that I don’t know what you 
feel about my sister.’’ 

About Joan?’’ said he. 

Yes. You are not interested in one of my other sis- 
ters, are you?’’ 

Only as Joan’s sisters.’’ 

Exactly. I thought so. It’s no use my pretending 
to you that Joan isn’t interested in you. She wouldn’t 
make a clean bolt of it, show a clean pair of heels, as it 
were, unless she didn’t want to have the pain of a big 
parting. I think she’s wise. Have you spoken to Joan?’’ 

“ I don’t know what you mean by speaking to Joan,’’ he 
rejoined, half-fiercely. 

Don’t you? I’ll put it quite plainly, Ozzie. Is Joan 
engaged to you ?’’ 

No.’’ 

Are you engaged to Joan?’’ 

For a moment he hesitated. '^As regards Joan — no; 
as regards myself — yes.’’ 

I don’t understand you. How can one be without the 
other ?’’ 

“ Well, I’ve not — at least, Joan — that is to say. I’ve had 
no opportunity of being actually engaged to her. She 
knows that I love her; she knows if I had a million to- 
morrow I would lay it at her feet.’’ 

109 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Yes. Well, that’s a problematical kind of compli- 
ment. ' I like you very much for yourself,’ you say. ' If 
I were a wealthy man, I would like to make my love for 
all time ; as I am not a wealthy man, I can’t.’ ” 

You are quite wrong,” said he. “ I never felt like 
that; anyhow, I can’t ask Joan to run away with me. 
Your father wouldn’t consent to a marriage.” 

He might.” 

He might; but I haven’t got the cheek to go and ask 
him to. I’ll go out there for a couple of years, and I’ll 
live on nothing, so to speak, and I’ll pay off some of my 
debts at all events.” 

Well?” 

“ And then Joan will only be one-and-twenty.” 

Yes. And you’ll have no better prospects then than 
you have now.” 

‘‘ No, I shall have no better prospects, — that is the un- 
fortunate part of it. I have no prospects, Mrs. Billy. I 
have a profession. It is not a profession that makes 
money ; it wants money. I haven’t anything to offer Joan 
but myself.” 

Well, of course you are all right in yourself, Ozzie, — 
I’m not saying a word against you, — you are a good 
height, and a good breadth, and you are apparently thor- 
oughly healthy and good-tempered, sound of wind and 
limb, and all that sort of thing; but, at the same time, 
you and Joan won’t be able to live upon that. You never 
thought of leaving the army, I suppose ?” 

I have thought of it. What could I do ? I was trained 


no 


A VERY LONG GOOD-BYE 


for the army from my earliest youth. I haven’t got two 
ideas in my head outside of the army. If I sent in my 
papers to-morrow, what should I do? Drift to London, 
try my hand at business of some kind, get fleeced of every 
farthing I’ve got, — and they are few enough, God knows, 
— and end up by being ten times worse off than I was at 
the beginning. I knew a chap,” he went on, “ he was in 
my regiment, an awfully swagger chap, too; beastly un- 
popular, but still he had good family and a certain amount 
of money. He left the service — I never quite knew why, 
but he left. He went into the wine trade. The last time 
he dined at mess he tried to do a wine deal with the 
president. The president, who had always rather liked 
him, said for the sake of old times he couldn’t refuse an 
old comrade. I don’t know whether the fellow made out 
of it; I know the mess didn’t. I shouldn’t like to come 
down to anything of that kind, Mrs. Billy.” 

No, that’s a very poor sort of business,” said Mrs. 
Billy. “ There are hundreds of things to do that are more 
suitable and more in accordance with a man’s position 
than touting for wine orders.” 

Yes,” said Main waring, gloomily, I know there are 
hundreds of things to do; but are there hundreds of 
things to do which require no training, no money, no in- 
fluence, nothing but the presence of a man of less than 
average intelligence in the ways of business?” 

“ No, I don’t think there are,” she said. 

“ It’s so easy to talk about there being hundreds of 
ways of making money,” he went on. “ In my experience 


III 


LITTLE JOAN 


I have always found that the most extravagant women 
have two refuges which mentally they fly to when they get 
to the end of their tether : the one is, of course, the work- 
house, and the other is going out to scrub floors for a 
living. Now, Mrs. Billy, I wonder what sort of good 
you’d be at scrubbing floors for a living?” 

Mrs. Billy Blake laughed. Well, Ozzie, I daresay 
I should be quite as good at it as you would be at the 
work of a stevedore.” 

'' Yes, I daresay you would. And the average steve- 
dore and charwoman would show us the way round and 
work our heads off in about ten minutes. It’s no use, 
Mrs. Billy. I was brought up for the army and cut out 
for the army. I am a decent enough soldier, though I 
shall probably never have the chance of earning any dis- 
tinction. Still, it is a progressive profession; I’ve got 
plenty of brains to get through my examinations and so 
on, but I haven’t got the sort of brains that go to make 
up a good business man; it’s no use pretending I have. 
I know a chap,” he went on, who set up an old curiosity 
shop. He knew all about it. He’d walk into a marine 
store dealer’s and pick out some filthy object that any- 
body would pay money to have carted away, and he’d 
make a fortune out of it ; that is to say, he’d make a profit 
of three figures. Oh, it requires special training and spe- 
cial brains, special genius, for that kind of thing. No, 
Mrs. Billy, there’s nothing for it, as far as I am con- 
cerned, but just going out to India and sticking at the 
grind until I’ve got through the bad time.” 


II2 


A VERY LONG GOOD-BYE 


“ And something may turn up,” said Mrs. Billy. 

** No,” said he, “ nothing will turn up, unless it is my 
toes.” 

Well, Em awfully sorry for you, Ozzie. I meant — 
well, you know, when I suggested business there are 
plenty of businesses besides those in London. I suppose 
you never thought of going in for a land agency ?” 

My dear girl, I don’t know anything about it,” he 
replied. I should get everything into an unholy mud- 
dle inside of a week, and then I should get the sack 
straight. No, there are too many younger sons properly 
trained for the work from their infancy, just as I’ve been 
trained for the army. The army is my fate, and I must 
stick to it. I suppose,” he added, after a minute’s pause, 

I suppose you wouldn’t give me Joan’s address, would 
you ?” 

No, I wouldn’t. I promised I wouldn’t.” 

“ I should have liked to have seen her again,” he said, 
wistfully. 

Yes, yes, of course you would ; but it’s better not. 
You know all this is very hard on little Joan. She is so 
pretty, and so unlike every other girl, so steadfast and 
true; you ought to have bitten your tongue out before 
you ever allowed it to utter one word of what you were 
feeling in your heart.” 

I did try. Somehow I couldn’t.” 

“ No, I daresay not ; but it’s very hard on her.” 

It’s just as hard on me.” 

“No, it isn’t — no, no, that’s not so. You have got 
8 113 


LITTLE JOAN 


yourself and your own folly to thank for your present 
crippled situation; Joan has never done anything that 
she shouldn’t have done. She’s always been unselfish; 
she’s always thought more about others than herself. I 
don’t pity you as I pity Joan.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Billy, don’t rub it in,” he said. ‘‘ You can’t 
blame me more than I blame myself, and all the rubbing 
in in the world won’t put the clock back; all the regret 
in the world won’t undo what has been done. I have 
made my bed; I suppose I must sleep on it. Then, you 
won’t give me Joan’s address ?” 

No, I can’t do that.” 

Well, I’ll write to her to-night. You’ll take care of 
the letter, perhaps, until she comes back? And for the 
present, Mrs. Billy, I’m afraid it’s a very long good-bye 
between us.” 


CHAPTER XIV 


The Burden of Life 

I N due course of time Oswald Mainwaring left Blank- 
hampton and Mrs. Billy Blake wrote to little Joan 
that the coast was clear and she could come home when 
she liked. But Joan showed herself in no hurry to get 
back to the home nest. On the contrary, she wrote to her 
sister to the effect that she intended to stay where she 
was for some time longer, and then she thought she 
would pay one or two other visits which she might find 
difficult later on. 

I don’t particularly want to come back while the 
regiment is still there,” she said. “ I’ve got over the 
awful wrench of it myself, but I know that I shall feel it 
frightfully when I come back. If there are new men in 
the cavalry barracks new faces, new married officers, an 
entirely new military atmosphere, it won’t be quite like 
coming back to what I left ; that is to say, I may feel the 
blank a bit less. I am writing awfully plainly to you, 
Maudie ; but it’s no use trying to keep any secrets from 
you. I never did, and I probably never shall. This busi- 
ness has hit me very hard. I shall get over it best if I 
am left to get over it in my own way. The time since 
dear mother’s death has been a horrible strain to me on 
all accounts. In the first place, I have never been used to 

115 


LITTLE JOAN 


being alone ; and to be alone when one is in deep mourn- 
ing and great trouble is a very different thing to being 
alone when you can go out and seek distraction in other 
people’s houses. I have tried hard to make father feel his 
loss as little as was possible. I think he has been as good 
as gold. I know that I have not been able to do very 
much to soften the blow to him. Then, Willy has been 
hard at work, — always stuck up in his own room with a 
wet towel round his head, as you may say ; and with all 
the girls who used to be at home gone, and you married, 
and no mother — well, life at Riverside has been one huge 
strain over since the day of her death. I know that you 
and Billy are content to stay with Dad as long as you 
are in Blankhampton, and perhaps, as your leave begins 
when the regiment marches out of Blankhampton, you 
won’t mind staying a few days longer still. This would 
give me a chance of the change that I have badly wanted 
for months past; and so I think I’ll go on to the Os- 
bornes from here, and to the Harringtons after I leave the 
Osbornes. If you and Billy were going to India, I 
wouldn’t propose this ; but it will be such a long time be- 
fore I get a chance again, probably not until Norah comes 
back from Australia. If my ideas don’t fall in with yours, 
let me know, dear Maudie, and I’ll accommodate myself 
at once and come home.” 

In answer to this Mrs. Billy wrote that she and Billy 
and the baby were perfectly happy at Blankhampton as 
long as the regiment remained in the cavalry barracks. 
“ After that,” she wrote, we have two months’ leave, 

ii6 


THE BURDEN OF LIFE 


and I am perfectly willing, and so is Billy, to stay here for 
half of it. Indeed, I think it is most essential that you 
should have a good change after the long strain you have 
been under, and your affair with O. M. must have added 
to it rather than have taken you out of yourself. Dear 
little Joan,'' she added, “ I am sorry that things haven't 
gone smoothly. If you are hard hit, my dear, so is he. 
He mayn't have twopence, but he loves you with all his 
heart, Joan. I never saw a man, short of breaking down 
and howling, so crushed and depressed as he was the last 
afternoon that he was here. I have a letter for you from 
him, which I promised to keep until your return. Shall 
I send it to you, or shall I keep it until you come back ?" 

In reply to this little Joan wrote back that she would 
be obliged if Maudie would take care of the letter until 
her return. He wished me to have it when I came 
back," she said, and I don't want to do anything to go 
against him." 

So it was not until the Black Horse were far on their 
way to India, not until after Oswald Mainwaring had 
joined the ship at Port Said, and they were, in fact, 
steaming across the Indian Ocean, that the letter he had 
written in farewell to his sweetheart reached her hands. 

She read it on the evening of her home-coming; read 
it when she had said good-night to everyone and was 
locked safely in the sanctuary of her own chamber. Shall 
I confess ? She read it on her knees, with a crushed and 
bleeding heart, in which love and pride and pain seemed 
to be fighting hard as to which should have the pre- 

117 


LITTLE JOAN 


eminence. It was a long letter. It praised and blamed 
her in one breath; it extolled her stoicism and her cour- 
age, placing those virtues at the height that a born sol- 
dier would place them; yet it blamed her, and promised 
and foretold and vowed all manner of incoherent impossi- 
ble things ; and the one thread of divine comfort that 
came to her was that Mainwaring meant to get through, 
meant to be faithful, meant to come back to her, meant 
that she should be his one day. 

Oh, the vows that men make when their hearts are full 
of love ! They are so real, they are so sweet to the 
women who read them. She read the letter again and 
again, until she knew it by heart, and then she put it 
away in a quaint little Japanese cupboard, profusely bound 
with silver, which she had acquired for the purpose 
during her last visit to London, along with half a dozen 
photographs of Mainwaring and the few trifles that he 
had given her from time to time. Then she locked the 
little shrine and hung the key upon the slender chain about 
her neck. 

“ There, that is all over,” she said ; '' all over.” And 
then she got into her bed with a great lump in her throat 
and tears in her eyes. 

But she was not wholly sad. There was light ahead; 
there was a future, although the road between looked dull 
and dreary. And from that day little Joan took up the 
burden of life again. It seemed like a half life. No Os- 
wald Mainwaring coming in towards tea-time ; no notes 
or books, or flowers sent down by a soldier-servant; no 

ii8 


THE BURDEN OF LIFE 


vivid interest in life — not even letters to write or news 
from India. Yet she never looked back or repented that 
she had been so firm in closing the door between them. 
“ It wouldn’t be fair to him,” her thoughts ran, if I had 
kept up a correspondence or tied him in any way. If he 
meets his heiress, I — well, there won’t be anything to 
break off. If he wins through, he will be the better 
worth waiting for.” And yet she longed for some sign 
or word from the man she loved; longed passionately, 
fiercely, with a longing that was almost unbearable, to 
have just a few lines in the firm, well-loved, and well- 
remembered handwriting. But yet she was not outwardly 
sad; she was not outwardly any different to what she 
had always been. 

As the months went by, she began to lighten the deep 
mourning of her attire; she began to go about a little 
among her friends and to take part in the festivities which 
offered themselves. Her father wished it so. 

“ I understand what you feel. You say you don’t want 
to go to this dance, Joan,” he said to her one day, when 
she had definitely declared that nothing should induce 
her to accept an invitation which had just arrived by post. 
“ It will be a hideous wrench for you going back into 
gaiety, and for all the rest of us, but you mustn’t forget 
you have sisters. You are twenty now, Joan, quite an old 
woman; they are young, with all their girlhood before 
them. Oh, my dear child, I was only joking when I said 
that you were quite a woman.” 

So I am, dear,” said Joan, her thoughts flying over 
119 


LITTLE JOAN 


thousands of miles of space to where he, who had made 
her disinclined for dances, was living. “ So I am, dear. 
I never was young like Agnes and Violet. Mother always 
used to call me ‘the witch,’ if you remember, — the little 
grave, wise woman. I never was a gay, bouncing flirt 
like the others. But, of course, if you wish it. Til go to 
this dance. I had forgotten all about Agnes and Violet. 
Of course, Agnes will be home, and she will want to 
go.” 

“ And she shall go.” 

“ She ought to have a new white dress, don’t you think ? 
It’s really her coming out.” 

“ Oh, certainly, certainly,” said Mr. Delamere. “ I 
can’t quite give her a dance.” 

“ Oh, no, dear, don’t think of it,” said the girl, her 
voice shaking at the remembrance of the last dance that 
had been given under that roof ; “ don’t think of it. 
Agnes wouldn’t wish it. She can have plenty of fun, 
plenty of gaiety without that. Then I’ll see after getting 
her a nice coming-out dress at once, and I suppose I had 
better arrange with Aunt Eleanor to chaperon us?” 

“ Yes, I suppose it is necessary just to mention it. She 
told me the other day she’d do anything I liked in that 
way, now that Maudie isn’t here.” 

“ Then, Maudie wants Agnes to go and stay with them 
a little while. They’ve got some steeplechases and other 
things coming off, and Agnes will be pretty sure of a gay 
time.” 

“ Let her go,” said Robert Delamere, hurriedly. “ Let 


120 


THE BURDEN OF LIFE 


her have everything that a girl should have of her age 
and position. As to you, my poor little Joan, it seems to 
me that you are nothing but a drudge for your old father 
now.” 

“If you say that again. Daddy,” said Joan, “ I shall 
think that you don’t appreciate me. I was always the 
home-bird. I’ve had a long turn away this winter, — quite 
as much as I have any wish for, — and as to racketting 
about, I never did care for it. I was always the one who 
stayed at home with mother when the others were gad- 
ding around. Don’t trouble yourself about me. Look at 
me ! Blooming as a rose, strong as a horse, patient as a 
mule, and perfectly happy and content to be with my old 
Daddy. And I beg you’ll not say anything of the kind 
to me again. I shall take it very unkindly if you do.” 

“ I won’t, my dear little girl,” said he ; “I won’t. I 
never made a favourite that I know among you, Joan,” 
he said, getting up and standing half turned away from 
her ; “ I hope I never did ; but I don’t think that I can 
say fairly that any one of the others would have filled 
in the blank of the past fourteen months as you have 
done.” 


I2I 


CHAPTER XV 


Into the World 

I T was with a most peculiar feeling that little Joan 
found herself once more going into a ballroom. The 
occasion was one of a ball given by the bachelors of 
Blankhampton. It was held in the great Assembly 
Rooms, which were charmingly decorated with many 
plants and flowers; the string band of the cavalry regi- 
ment then quartered in the garrison had been requisi- 
tioned and all that was best and brightest in Blankhamp- 
ton and its neighbourhood had been bidden and had gladly 
accepted the invitation. There was a large contingent 
of officers from each regiment then quartered at Blank- 
hampton; a good sprinkling of clergy, a great many 
hunting men just about to take wing for other fields 
of sport or amusement, the whole of the gilded youth of 
Blankhampton itself, and all the prettiest girls to be 
drawn for miles around. 

It was with pride that little Joan saw tall Agnes in 
her lovely white debutante’s dress seized upon by a dozen 
goodly youths, each eager and anxious to find a place on 
her programme. For herself she had the peculiar feeling 
of a widow, — of one who has been through the gaieties of 
this life, and while in them is no longer of them. And she 
was only twenty years old. 


122 


INTO THE WORLD 


Her own dress was white, like her sister’s, but, instead 
of being the pure white robe of a debutante, she had some 
touches of black velvet about it, and on her dress a great 
spray of pinkish orchids. 

The first man who turned from Agnes to ask Joan for 
a dance filled her with dismay. 

“ I ?” she said. “ Oh, I don’t think I’m going to 
dance.” 

'' Not dance. Miss Joan? Why? What nonsense ! Of 
course you are going to dance.” 

“ I — I didn’t mean to. Oh, no, I don’t think I will. 
You see. I’m looking after my sister.” 

But you have a chaperon? You are with Mrs. Freddy 
Delamere. She is your chaperon, surely. 

“Aunt Eleanor? Yes. But I never thought of 
dancing.” 

“ But you can think of it now.” 

“ I suppose I can. I — oh, really, it is so long since I 
have danced I almost forget how to. Don’t you think you 
could find somebody else?” 

“ I don’t want to find anybody else,” said the young man 
in rather a hurt tone. 

“ Oh, don’t you ? Then I will dance with you — at least. 
I’ll — I’ll try. Somehow, I never thought of dancing to- 
night. I only came because my sister Agnes was coming. 
Yes, any one you like. It’s all one to me.” 

“ You know, there’s a man here who’s very anxious to 
be introduced to you,” said he. 

“ Is there ? How foolish of him ? How can men be so 


123 


LITTLE JOAN 


foolish as to ask girls that they haven’t even seen take one 
turn round the room! Who is he?” 

He’s a man who’s been hunting here this winter. He’s 
seen you several times about, and he’s very anxious to 
make your acquaintance.” 

Indeed. Oh, yes, you may introduce him, if you like ; 
if he really wishes to. But, Mr. Snowden, don’t give me 
partners out of kindness. It’s no kindness to me. I didn’t 
mean to dance to-night.” 

The young man laughed as he left her side and went 
across the room towards the door, where another man 
was standing. He was quite the usual type of man you 
meet with in a good hunting centre: spare and clean of 
limb, long of leg, and light in weight; with a clear-cut, 
rather clever face, piercing grey eyes under black level 
brows, and a mere thread of black above the mouth. 

May I introduce Sir Robert Masters, Miss Dela- 
mere?” said Snowden, as the pair reached Joan’s side. 

“ Oh, certainly. How do you do?” said she to the new- 
comer. 

“ How do you do ? May I have the honour of a dance ?” 

If you like. I — I didn’t mean dancing to-night. I 
haven’t danced for some time,” she added in a lower 
voice. “ I don’t suppose my step will suit yours a bit ; 
but we can sit it out.” 

“ Oh, yes, we can sit it out,” said he. 

His voice was very low and thrilling. Joan was inter- 
ested in spite of herself, and I may say in spite of that 
other interest, so many thousand miles away. 

124 


INTO THE WORLD 


“ I may take two said Sir Robert, quietly. 

Oh, yes, if you like — if you like to run the risk. You 
had better let me introduce you to my sister. I don’t 
know if she has any dances left.” 

Your sister?” said the other, enquiringly. 

She indicated tall Agnes by the faintest possible ges- 
ture. 

Oh, is that your sister? I’ve seen you with her, I — 
excuse me, you are so awfully unlike.” 

Yes, I have four sisters, all exactly like this one. 
I’m the little odd one — the odd man out, as far as looks 

“ Not in other ways ?” 

No, thank goodness, not in other ways. We’re a very 
chummy family. We never have fallen out, or anything 
of that kind.” She turned and touched her sister on the 
arm with her fan. Let me introduce Sir Robert Mas- 
ters,” she said. 

Then Sir Robert asked for and obtained a dance from 
Agnes’s almost filled programme. The girl was excited 
and a little inclined to toss her head over her success. 
Joan watched her with the expression of a mother — a 
little proud, very indulgent, wholly sympathetic. 

You are quite the little mother to this young sister 
of yours. Miss Delamere,” said Sir Robert, as he moved 
back to Joan’s side. 

“ Yes, I am quite the little mother since we lost our 
own. But I have two sisters older than myself.” 

Really ? I thought you were the eldest.” 

125 


LITTLE JOAN 

“ No. My eldest sister is Mrs. Billy Blake of the Black 
Horse.’' 

You don’t say so?” 

‘‘ Yes. And my next eldest sister has gone out to 
Australia to one of my brothers. She was in poor health 
and she wanted a change ; and now he has got her there 
he won’t let her come back again. I’m the eldest at home, 
you know.” 

And then young Snowden came back and told Joan that 
their dance was beginning. 

Miss Joan,” he said, as they moved away, “ that chap 
Masters is an awfully good fellow.” 

He seems nice enough,” said Joan. 

“ He seems what he is. Lord, you should see him ride 
to hounds ! Straight as a die over everything. He can 
do what he likes with his horses; they jump like cats. 
I never saw anything like it. I’ve gone out, I give you 
my word, just for the pleasure of seeing that chap go at 
everything; just eager enough, never in the way of any- 
body; quiet, cool, collected. I haven’t seen such a man 
for ages.” 

“ Has he been popular down here this winter ?” 

Oh, awfully popular. There isn’t a man of any sort 
in the field that hasn’t liked him. I believe he’s going for 
a yachting cruise. After that over to Norway to put in 
a bit of salmon fishing; then back to town for the tail 
end of the season ; then off in the yacht again to Trouville 
for the races ; and then the usual round of country visits 
and shooting until it’s time to hunt again. Lucky dog! 

126 


INTO THE WORLD 


What a comfort it must be to be sufficiently wealthy to 
indulge yourself in all these things, and entirely inde- 
pendent, so that you needn’t consult a single soul in the 
world about any of your movements. Oh, by the bye,” 
he went on, did you hear that very queer story the other 
day about Mrs. Carruthers ?” 

No,” said Joan. ‘‘ What was it ?” 

“ It was very funny,” said young Snowden. Mrs. 
Fox-Atherley went to tea with Mrs. Carruthers the other 
day, and Mrs. Carruthers wanted to tell her something, 
so she told Maudie — who is eleven — to go out of the room. 
Maudie said, ‘ Shan’t !’ Mrs. Carruthers said, ^ You 
must.’ ' Shan’t !’ said Maudie. ' Then,’ said Mrs. Car- 
ruthers, ‘ I shall have to put you out of the room.’ As 
she looked rather threatening, Maudie beat a retreat ; but 
at the door she turned round, saying, ^ Now I under- 
stand father when he says, Why did 1 marry this 
damned woman ?” ’ ” 

'' You made that up ” said Joan, laughing in spite of 
herself. 

“ I didn’t. Give you my word of honour. Mrs. Fox- 
Atherley told me.” 

“ Mrs. Fox-Atherley ought to be ashamed of herself,” 
said Joan ; but her voice was shaking and her eyes were 
alight with laughter. 

“ Well, I suppose we ought all to be ashamed of our- 
selves when we speak of anybody to their discredit ; but 
if ever I give rise to such a howling joke the whole world 
will be welcome to talk about it,” he said, in amusement. 

127 


LITTLE JOAN 


She was still smiling when Sir Robert Masters came to 
claim his dance. You have some tremendous joke on 
hand/' he remarked, as he offered his arm. 

Joan smiled back at him. Yes, that bad boy has told 
me an exceedingly funny story.” 

“ I guessed that. What was it about?” 

“ Oh, I don’t think I’ll repeat it. I’m no scandal- 
monger.” 

Did you enjoy it?” 

I did.” 

Why keep your enjoyment to yourself?” 

“ It does seem rather mean,” said Joan. I don’t be- 
lieve it was true for a moment.” 

What was it about ?” 

“ It was about Mrs. Carruthers. Do you know Mrs. 
Carruthers ?” 

“ Oh, yes. Was it about Mrs. Fox-Atherley and 
■ Maudie?” 

“ Yes. Then you’ve heard it?” 

“ Yes, everybody heard it. It’s been about for the last 
week or so. I believe it’s absolutely true. But the fun- 
niest side of the story is something else.” 

Oh, what’s that?” 

“ Well, I was in the club the day before yesterday, 
looking over the papers after a very hard day’s run, — 
eating muffins and drinking tea, if I tell the truth, — and 
Carruthers himself came in. Everybody regarded him 
with more or less interest, for they had all heard the 
story, and that great, foolish chap, Berkeley, who hasn’t 

128 


INTO THE WORLD 


got the discretion of a mouse or the wisdom of a fly, swag- 
gered across the room and dug him in the ribs. ‘ Well, 
Major,^ said he, ^ that’s a funny story that’s going round 
about your wife.’ 'Eh? What?’ said Carruthers. 'Story 
about my wife ? What do you mean ?’ And sure enough, 
young Berkeley, with all the bounce of a cavalry soldier, 
let fly the entire story at unfortunate Carruthers, who 
would have been field-officer to him if he wasn’t re- 
tired.” 

" What did Major Carruthers say?” 

" Well, it wasn’t what he said. He went absolutely 
purple, and was very shirty, indeed, over it. He con- 
fided to Berkeley’s chief, who came in just as we were 
all looking seven ways for Sunday and Berkeley had bub- 
bled out of the room, that he thought it was a beastly 
ungentlemanlike thing for a young fellow to tell a story 
like that about a married woman. And the chief said, 
in an awful voice, ' Are you telling me this officially ?’ 
' No, sir,’ said Carruthers, ' is it likely I’m telling you offi- 
cially ! I’m telling you as one gentleman to another. ' Well, 
as one gentleman to another, Carruthers,’ said old Fitz- 
Alan, ' I think it’s a thousand pities you weren’t sharp 
enough to turn the tables on him.’ 'Turn the tables!’ 
thundered Carruthers. 'Yes,’ said Fitz-Alan; 'if you 
had told him it was the best joke you had ever heard in 
your life, and that your wife would scream with laughter 
over it, you would have taken all the sting out of the 
boy. As it is, I am very much afraid that, unless you 
inform me of it officially, he’s got the pull over you I’ ” 

129 


9 


CHAPTER XVI 


Robert Masters 

I T is astonishing how intimate people can get during 
the course of a single evening. Now, Joan Delamere 
was a girl with whom it was not very easy to get intimate, 
yet somehow Robert Masters contrived to accomplish 
that end. He treated her from the first moment precisely 
as if he had known her since his boyhood, as if he had 
been one of the ordinary Blankhampton young men, who 
had gone to Edward the Sixth’s school, and had drifted 
up to manhood just as the girls had drifted towards 
womanhood. He deliberately took advantage of Joan’s 
determination not to dance much by declaring that he 
was utterly fagged out himself and had only joined in 
the ball because it would have seemed churlish, after 
spending a winter hand and glove with the men in and 
around Blankhampton, if he had held himself aloof. 

'' You and I, Miss Delamere, are quite staid and elderly 
people,” he said to her, with the gravest possible face and 
without a twinkle in his steady grey eyes. It’s all very 
well for these youngsters to fag themselves out till their 
feet are ready to drop off their legs, and they don’t know 
whether their heads are heads or plum-puddings. But 
you and I are wiser. We are going to sit out and enjoy 
rational conversation; we’ll dance a little in between, 
130 


ROBERT MASTERS 


and we’ll go to supper together. I’m an excellent person 
to go to supper with, because I’m not above the good 
things of this world. I personally rather despise men 
who affect to despise what they eat and drink. When 
you don’t learn to eat and drink with discretion, and you 
can’t play a game of whist, what are you going to do in 
your old age ? That’s what I very often ask fellows.” 

“ I don’t know that you and I need trouble about our 
old age yet,” said Joan. 

“ I don’t trouble about it. It’s no trouble to make a 
proper and suitable provision for it; it’s the duty of 
every man and every woman. Now, down this corridor, 
— I daresay you know the rooms better than I do, — ^but 
down this corridor is the only comfortable seat in the 
whole building. Let us go and sample it.” 

If anyone had told Joan Delamere a couple of hours 
previously that she would, before midnight, be on terms 
of what looked like the closest intimacy with a person 
whom she had never seen in her life before, she would 
have stoutly declared that the suggestion was an utterly 
impossible one. Yet she went away that night back to 
Riverside and got into her litle white bed with a feeling 
that, after all, life was worth living. Of course, he wasn’t 
like Oswald Mainwaring. Nobody could ever be quite the 
same, or quite equal to him; but there was a something 
about him that she liked, a something that she felt was 
dependable, that she could trust. And then he was ex- 
tremely attractive in person, with his steady eyes and his 
quiet, self-possessed manner. It was a different manner 

131 


LITTLE JOAN 


to Oswald Mainwaring’s, much less ornate, much more 
direct; a man, Joan’s thoughts ended, a man to make a 
friend of — not a lover; no, no, there was just some- 
thing that she felt would never be the lover, but a man 
friend. 

Of course, he called at Riverside on the following day, 
finding some half-dozen young men all more or less vic- 
tims at Agnes’s shrine. There were no victims at little 
Joan’s excepting himself ; and he was glad of it, because 
it gave him an opportunity of talking to her as he hardly 
could have done had he been only one of half a dozen. 
So, while the younger people sat in a gay group around 
the tea-table in the morning-room, Sir Robert Masters 
and Joan sat apart, near to the fire which blazed in the 
wide grate. 

What a delightful house this is !” he remarked, look- 
ing round for the twentieth time. I have been here 
since the beginning of December, and now the hunting 
is just over. What a lot of time wasted ! How was it, I 
wonder, that I never met you before ?” 

“We haven’t been going out very much,” Joan an- 
swered. “ And now you have got to know us you are just 
going away. Somebody told me last night that you were 
going yachting.” 

“ Yes, I have a yacht. I haven’t definitely settled to 
take her out just yet.” 

“ Oh, I thought you were going to Norway imme- 
diately ?” 

“ Well, I did speak of it, but I don’t think I shall go. 
132 


ROBERT MASTERS 


Norway is all very well in the hot weather, when you 
have got nothing else to do, but Em not desperately keen 
on salmon-fishing. I like it well enough, that’s all.” 

“ Oh ! In any case, you won’t be long in Blankhamp- 
ton?” 

“ I suppose not. I’m very comfortable at the hotel I’m 
at. Yes, I’m at the Golden Swan. It’s a very comfortable 
little place ; they do me very well. I’m not gone yet, you 
know. Don’t know that I shall just yet.” 

“ But there’s nothing for you to do. Hunting will be 
over directly.” 

“ Yes, I know. But, you know, I’ve never been dull 
here on days when I couldn’t hunt. So much depends on 
the kind of hotel one gets into. By the bye. Miss Dela- 
mere, what do you do with yourself all the time ?” 

” 1 ? Well, I can hardly tell you. I’m a very busy 
person.” 

Really?” 

^‘Yes, very busy; extremely so. I have all thq house 
and my father and brother to look after.” 

“ Oh, yes, you have a brother ?” 

Yes. He’s a lawyer, like my father.” 

“I see. You look after them? How nice for them! 
I’m sure you do it beautifully. Are you very strict ?” 

In some ways very strict,” said Joan. “ You know, 
there is a good deal to do in a house of this size; but 
nothing to what it used to be when it was full. Not that 
I spend all my time in the house. We used to be, when 
mother was alive, — we used to be always doing some- 


133 


LITTLE JOAN 


thing. We were thoroughly gay and happy and con- 
tented. And then she died, and everything seemed to 
break up, as if all life had gone out of us. And, some- 
how, we haven’t got back into anything like the same 
life that we used to live.” 

“ You took your mother’s death frightfully to heart. 
I can see that,” said Sir Robert Masters. “ Some mothers 
are like that; and when they are taken away nothing 
seems able to replace them.” 

“ Nothing could replace our mother,” said Joan. 

There was a momentary pause. Then he took up the 
conversation again, for he saw that the subject was still 
a very sore one with her. “ It always seems to me,” he 
went on, “ that there’s so much to do in Blankhampton. 
I never was in a place that ‘ went it’ to such an extent.” 

Is that so?” 

Oh, never. I’ve lived in London, and in Paris, but 
I never knew people go it as they do in Blankhampton. 
Life is one everlasting bustle. Why, I assure you. Miss 
Delamere, if I went to a tenth of the tea-parties I’m 
asked to, I should be a perfect martyr to dyspepsia.” 

“ Oh, tea-parties,” said Joan ; “ yes, they are rather 
numerous ; but when we were gay we didn’t go to so 
many tea-parties. I’m afraid there’s always a sort of a 
tea-party going on here. You see, I have four sisters — 
my married sister, the one in Australia, one at school, and 
this one,” indicating Agnes by a look. 

“ And you play golf ?” 

“ Oh, yes.” 


134 


ROBERT MASTERS 


“ You cycle?’’ 

“ Yes.” 

“ And tennis ?” 

Of course.” 

“ And you put in a good bit of church-going ?” 

“ Oh, a fair amount.” 

“ And a certain amount of work among the poor?” 

“ Well, yes we do our share of that.” 

And you dance, and get us private theatricals, and 
sewing parties ? And perhaps a Browning Society ? And 
you collect china, and you paint in water-colours, and, oh ! 
you have a very busy life. Miss Delamere, I know. Now, 
with me, I hunt every day that I possibly can. I don’t 
want to do anything on an oif day, and I don’t want 
to do anything except eat my dinner and go to bed when 
I come home. It’s an idle life, the life of a hunting man ; 
the people who do one thing at a time are the idlest 
in the world. And all men’s pursuits are the same. Men 
are intensely one-eyed people. Did it ever strike you ?” 

“ No.” 

“ Everything we do, we do an awful lot of. We shoot 
an awful lot, fish an awful lot ; we hunt all the time, or 
we go to the ends of the earth to shoot big game. Every- 
thing that a man does, that he does with his heart, is done 
to the exclusion of everything else. Take the profes- 
sions ; it’s exactly the same. A man’s a lawyer ; he does 
lawyering all day long, comes home, eats his dinner, goes 
to bed, and that’s all. Then there’s an actor; he stays 
in bed till late in the morning, gets up, takes a bit of a 


135 


LITTLE JOAN 


walk, makes an enormous meal at three o’clock, and 
hibernates until it’s time to go to the theatre and do his 
whack there. A painter will paint all day long, until the 
light fails. A literary man is always steeped up to his 
eyes in ink. But women — oh, what wonderful creatures 
women are! I know a lady in London, Miss Delamere; 
she’s a woman of about thirty odd. She is an actress by 
profession, a lady by birth, brilliantly educated. That 
woman does everything. She plays eight times a week 
in an utterly exhausting role, she paints pictures for the 
Academy, she writes stories for the magazines, she enter- 
tains largely, and she’s seen here, there, and everywhere ; 
and she makes her own hats. You put a man to do that — 
he wouldn’t last a week. Oh, women are wonderful crea- 
tures I I scarcely ever go to that woman’s house — and 
she’s got the daintiest little house in Mayfair — that I don’t 
find everything rearranged. Sunday, she tells me, Sun- 
day morning she gives up to what she calls ' domestics ;’ 
that is to say, she washes the most priceless portion of 
her china collection, she looks over all her bibelots, she 
rearranges her rooms, she washes the dog, and thinks out 
anything especially connected with her toilet. She has 
never had time to get married, and a handsomer or more 
charming woman I don’t happen to know.” 

Does she look young?” said Joan. 

Oh, quite young. She might be anything over three- 
and-twenty. She’s never tired. She does gymnastics 
every morning in her bedroom, and a different set every 
night when she goes to bed ; she’s invented a face-wash, 

136 


ROBERT MASTERS 


she’s intensely musical, and she has the finest collection 
of penny toys I ever saw.” 

“ What a wonderful person ! How is it you haven’t 
persuaded her to ?” 

? Oh, my dear Miss Delamere ! A charming woman 
to know, a charming woman to make a lunch party for, 
charming photograph to have on your mantel-shelf, a per- 
son to talk about, a person whose acquaintance is a thing 
to be proud of, but as a wife — oh, well, fortunately, she 
wouldn’t look at me.” 

I don’t think you ought to say fortunately” 

“ Yes, I’m speaking quite by the card. I ought to say 
fortunately because, you see, my ideal in life is to do a 
great deal of one thing at a time, so when I come back 
to my home I want somebody who would have some idea 
of reposefulness, who will have no great schemes on 
hand, who — oh, my dear Miss Delamere, imagine coming 
home from hunting, or from six weeks’ salmon-fishing, 
or any of the other pursuits a man has, and finding a wife 
dining, say at six o’clock, because she had to go to the 
theatre at eight.” 

Perhaps she would give up the theatre.” 

“ She might. But do you think a woman who has 
been accustomed for years to eating her dinner at six 
o’clock, going to the theatre, and coming home to supper 
at half-past eleven, would be content to live the ordinary 
life of an ordinary woman? Oh, no, no! Believe me, I 
spoke quite by the card when I said fortunately she 
wouldn’t look at me.” 


137 


CHAPTER XVII 


Friendship 

T he hunting season was quite over, and yet Sir Rob- 
ert Masters lingered in Blankhampton. The ex- 
cuses he invented for not hurrying away to seek for the 
wary salmon, or otherwise occupy himself, were as in- 
genious as they were many. He said that he had rarely 
been in an hotel so comfortable as the Golden Swan, that 
it was just the kind of old-fashioned hostelry in which 
he felt himself at home ; that they had an excellent cook, 
and he had a most comfortable bed, and that the barmaids 
did not make eyes at him. 

“ I strongly object,” he remarked one day, in the sanc- 
tity of the Gentleman’s Club, to a select audience of three 
soldiers who were chaffing him on his having taken root 
for good and all in the old cathedral city, “ I do most 
strongly object to living in an hotel where the barmaids 
make eyes at one. Now, these two girls here are ideal 
barmaids. They wouldn’t do in a railway station, of 
course, — they are not sufficiently scornful, — and they 
wouldn’t do in a West-End bar, like the Frivolity and 
such like, because they are not flashy enough, but they are 
absolutely distinguished in their way. They treat me as 
if I were sixty, and yet they never forget anything that I 
want. If anyone calls on me, I know it as soon as I come 

138 


FRIENDSHIP 


in. I get messages and letters and parcels without the 
smallest delay, and I shouldn’t like to tell a risky joke to 
either of them. Oh, yes, the hotel has points, very defi- 
nite points, or I shouldn’t be here.” 

“ Then you are thinking,” said one of the soldiers, of 
transferring one of the young ladies to — to your own 
place, and to your own name?” 

Well, I wasn’t thinking of it,” said Sir Robert Mas- 
ters, coolly. “ I admit a man might do worse, but the 
idea has not presented itself to me so far. Now you have 
put it into my head. I’ll think it over. It’s not a bad sug- 
gestion. But I think I should have to move very warily, 
for I’m not at all sure that both the young ladies haven’t 
already booked themselves. What’s the advice the old 
proverb gave about letting sleeping dogs lie and refrain- 
ing from stirring up muddy water? Well, there isn’t 
any muddy water here, and I don’t know that the dogs 
that are sleeping are at all vicious, but perhaps, on the 
whole, I’d better let things go on as they are. They are 
perfectly satisfactory now; they mightn’t be if I sought 
to make radical changes.” 

What a rum chap Masters is !” said one soldier to the 
other, as they strolled away up the narrow, bustling 
street. Did he mean all that about the barmaids ?” 

“Not a bit of it. He’s got other fish to fry, has that 
chap. Couldn’t you see it in his eye ?” 

“ No, I couldn’t,” said the first speaker, “ and I looked 
at him hard. I wasn’t half sure that he wasn’t pulling our 
leg all the time.” 


139 


LITTLE JOAN 


It was, however, easy enough to make excuses to people 
outside the particular zone of interest which was attract- 
ing Sir Robert Masters at that time. Within that zone, 
however, curiosity was just as rife, and explanations were 
proportionately difficult to make. 

“ Why am I staying in Blankhampton ?” said he to 
Joan one afternoon, about a month after the last hunting 
fixture. Well, you know. Miss Delamere, I felt that I 
wanted a rest. You think it’s odd, perhaps? It is, 
rather ; but my belief is that when a man finds himself in 
a singularly good billet, it’s practically an act of folly to 
shift himself out of it.” 

'' Ah, you mean the hotel ?” 

Yes ; most comfortable hotel,” he said, catching at the 
idea ; “ most comfortable. Let me live my own life ; very 
decent, worthy, kind people; they make me most com- 
fortable, and I like Blankhampton.” 

“ It is so odd that you should like Blankhampton when 
the hunting is all over. I thought you would have flown 
away to ' fresh woods and pastures new’ long ago.” 

'' You made that quotation quite correctly,” said he. 

What quotation ?” 

“ ‘ Fresh woods and pastures new.’ ” 

“ Did I?” 

“ Most people say ' Fresh Helds and pastures new,’ ” 
he remarked, quietly. 

“ Yes, I believe they do. How funny of you to no- 
tice it!” 

“ I notice everything that you do.” 


140 


FRIENDSHIP 


“ Oh, don’t say that 

“ I do. Why do you say I mustn’t notice it ?” 

“ Because,” said Joan, promptly, “ you would notice it 
equally quickly if I made a mistake.” 

'' I don’t think you could make a mistake,” said he, 
gravely. 

“ Oh, don’t you ? Don’t you believe it, or expect me 
to believe that you believe it,” said Joan, bubbling over 
with laughter. But, seriously. Sir Robert, why do you 
like Blankhampton ?” 

Because it’s restful.” 

“ The first time I ever saw you — I mean the first time 
you ever came here,” she said, correcting herself quickly, 

you told me that in Blankhampton people ‘ went it’ more 
than in any place you had ever been in.” 

^‘Yes, they do; they go it most frightfully, and they 
have a sort of air of going it which is fetching to the last 
extent; but if you don’t choose to go it you can equally 
well just float on your back and let the stream of life glide 
slowly past you, or quickly past you, which it likes. I 
went for a long walk this morning,” he continued, “ be- 
cause, of course, it doesn’t do to let one’s self get entirely 
out of training, and I saw the country in a dress that I 
haven’t seen it in for years, because, you see. I’ve always 
gone straight from the last day of hunting on to some 
other pursuit, either of pleasure in London, or of salmon- 
fishing in Norway or Ireland, or somewhere or other. So 
I got a new idea this morning,” he added, reflectively. 

'' You don’t say so?” 


LITTLE JOAN 


I did. Fve always in my heart just a little bit despised 
the old hunting men who hunted every day in the week all 
through the season, and then vegetated on their estates 
until it was time to get out their hunting things again. 
I begin to see they’ve got the best of it, or if they haven’t 
got the best of it, they haven’t got exactly the worst of 
it. I’ve been accustomed to see the country bare and 
brown, to love it best when it was wet and sloppy. For 
years I’ve never seen the primroses come out, or the 
green begin to burst on the trees, the hedges put on their 
summer robes; I’ve known nothing of the wonderful 
effect of spring. I walked out this morning right by 
Barningham Towers.” 

“ That is ten miles,” said Joan. 

“ Yes, it’s about that. I went one way and I came back 
the other. A mile or so away from the house I ‘turned 
aside from the road and went through a little spinney, and 
got on the track again at the other end. It was like 
standing on the threshold of another life, and my only 
feeling was one of regret that I had to let so many years 
go by during which I had treated the deep heart of the 
country with profoundest neglect. Those old country 
squires gain a good deal by staying at home.” 

“ Yes, yes,” said Joan ; “ but it doesn’t make for inter- 
est, it doesn’t improve the mental calibre of the human 
being to be always communing with Nature. It’s very 
interesting to them, but it is intensely boring to other 
people. I think nothing makes men so utterly boring as 
when they can talk about nothing but their crops and 
142 


FRIENDSHIP 


such like. Take the ordinary agricultural labourer, for 
instance. How stupid he is ! He knows when sheeps’ 
tails in the sky mean wind, and that a mackerel sky means 
wet, and he has a fair idea of what sort of weather 
there will be to-morrow ; but that isn’t everything in this 
life. I wouldn’t regret so much if I were you ; I wouldn’t 
try to flatter myself that I am learning the deep heart 
of the country out of the Golden Swan Hotel at Blank- 
hampton.” 

“ You are too much for me. Miss Delamere,” said he, 
in a crushed tone. 

“ I don’t think you are staying here because of the 
deep heart of the country,” went on Joan, inflexibly. 
“It’s only my idea, you know; but that’s just what I 
think.” 

“ Perhaps not,” he responded, meekly ; “ but I’m stay- 
ing here, and I’m going to stay here for a time. I’m 
resting.” 

“ On your oars ?” said Joan. 

“ Well, perhaps not exactly on my oars ; and yet in a 
measure — yes.” 

And so he stayed on and stayed on, through the bright 
spring days right into the golden summer. Once he went 
up to town for a few days, just to be best man at a wed- 
ding and to pay a visit to his tailor; but he kept his 
rooms on at the Golden Swan, and was very soon installed 
in them again. 

“ Oh, yes, I came back,” he remarked to the first per- 
son he met as he went down St. Thomas’s Street ; “ yes, 

143 


LITTLE JOAN 


I came back. I said I should. I haven’t felt so well for 
years. You know Fm rather a delicate man.” 

Oh, really, are you ? Indeed. I shouldn’t have 
thought it.” 

“ No, my looks never pity me ; and of course I hunt 
rather hard, and that gives people the idea that I never ail 
anything; but on the whole I’m not a very strong chap, 
and this place suits me down to the ground. No, I don’t 
intend to stay here in August, not at all ; but until August. 
I think I might just as well be here as grilling in London. 
You know what London life is for an unattached man — 
crawl down Piccadilly in the morning, crawl down again 
in the afternoon, put in at a dozen big tea-parties with an 
atmosphere like an unmentionable place, dine somewhere 
or other at night off a long and intricate string of indi- 
gestible and impossible dishes, do a theatre and supper, 
or half a dozen big parties with atmospheres worse than 
the atmosphere of the afternoon. I assure you, it is a 
fact. You don’t get your leave in summer, my dear chap. 
If you did, you would know better what I am talking 
about. Why are they stuffier at night than they are in 
the afternoon? Well, partly because in the afternoon 
people stick their windows wide open with the idea that 
the summer air won’t hurt them, and in the evening they 
shut in every window and every balcony with a tent of 
striped awning, partly to make the house bigger, and 
partly to shut out anything approaching to draughts. 
If women could only know what their fried faces look like 
under the electric light, they’d never go to an evening 

144 


FRIENDSHIP 


party at all. I know one woman, — a very handsome 
woman, — no, she’s not young, not by a long way, but 
she’s very good-looking. She gives up going to evening 
parties when her hair comes out of curl. The moment 
she goes home from an evening party and finds her hair 
sticking out in every direction she chucks evening parties 
for the rest of that season. That’s the way to keep fresh, 
my boy, and it’s a thousand pities that the rest of the 
women don’t know it and live up to it. As for me. I’ve 
got a fancy to stay in Blankhampton. It’s a ripping little 
place in a way. It’s made a new man of me, by Jove ! 
And I shall never forget or regret the months that I 
have passed in it.” 


10 


145 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Real Friends 



IR ROBERT MASTERS continued his study of the 


deep heart of the country undeterred by the chaff- 
ing comments of his friends and acquaintances in Blank- 
hampton. His pitch, if I may use such a word, was, 
however, not what in an ordinary sense could be termed 
the deep heart of the country, for day by day he was to be 
found sauntering along the river walk and turning in at 
the lower gate of Riverside at the hour approaching for 
afternoon tea. Sometimes he went to lunch, and at others 
he came back again for dinner ; but he was always there 
to afternoon tea. He explained to Joan that the only 
“ let-down,’" as he put it, of the Golden Swan was the little 
between meal which is known as afternoon tea. 

Now, you know. Miss Joan,” he said one day, with 
a half apology for turning up again (for this was before 
he had got into the regular habit of coming as a matter 
of right), '' you know, Miss Joan, a hunting man always 
wants his tea. He’s had a stiff day’s work — or play, 
which you like ; he has had nothing, perhaps, but break- 
fast at some house or other, all lobster salads and aspic; 
or a sandwich out of his own case. It wants a couple of 
hours to dinner, and tea comes in as a sort of heaven- 
sent meal, a putting on of the time, a staying of the — 


146 


REAL FRIENDS 


well, of the inner man, Miss Joan ; and somehow he gets 
into the way of wanting a cup of tea and a muffin or a 
tea-cake, or some unconsidered trifle of that kind, just 
to carry him along until the regulation time. It’s aston- 
ishing,” he added, “ how soon a habit is formed. I miss 
my tea hideously if I don’t get it.” 

And they don’t give you good tea at the Golden 
Swan? I’m surprised,” said Joan. 

“ Well, I suppose it’s good enough, — yes, I should say 
it was, — but sornehow it isn’t like yours, you know. By 
the way, do you stay here all through August?” 

“ Oh, no ; we always go to Rockborough in August.” 

“ Do you ? Nice place ?” 

“ Well, yes, it’s nice enough ; nicer than Brighton. 
You know, there are cheap trips, and the place is a little 
full at times; but it’s gay and bright, and the air is 
lovely.” 

“ I see. I don’t know that I shan’t go to Rockborough 
this year.” 

“ You go to Rockborough !” echoed Joan. 

Why shouldn’t I go to Rockborough ?” 

I don’t know. It seemed funny ; that was all.” 

I’ve known fellows who went to Rockborough to get 
picked up against the winter season,” he went on, in 
rather an ill-used tone ; “ I’ve known ever so many fel- 
lows who swear by the air of Rockborough. There’s a 
spa thing, isn’t there?” 

'' Oh, yes ; there’s a gorgeous spa.” 

And a pier, too ?” 


147 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Oh, yes. And bathing-house.’' 

“ And one could have a couple of horses there ?” 

Well, you could.” 

“ And something to drive ?” 

Yes, certainly; and there’s the usual round. Oh, I 
don’t say anything against Rockborough.” 

“ I don’t feel like going to Norway this year. I don’t 
want to kill anything until November. I hate French 
watering-places, — I don’t gamble, — and I think Rockbor- 
ough will be good enough for me.” 

“ Oh, it’s good enough in a way.” 

“ At all events, you won’t mind if I go, will you ?” 

“ Mind ? Rockborough doesn’t belong to me,” said 
Joan, laughing outright. 

“ Miss Joan, you know very well what I mean ; you 
know perfectly well what I am leading up to. I have 
been coming here every day now for months — or nearly 
every day ■” 

“ I think we may say quite every day. Sir Robert,” said 
Joan. 

“ Well, there’s only one thing I should like to come 
for — and that’s you.” 

The girl flushed up rosy red, then went ghastly pale. 
“ Oh, you don’t mean it !” she cried. “ Oh, you couldn’t 
mean it. You — you are not a marrying man. Everybody 
says so.” 

“ I never said so,” said he. 

‘‘No, I don’t know that you did. But everybody else 
did.” 


148 


REAL FRIENDS 


“ But everybody else doesn’t count/’ returned Sir 
Robert. 

Oh, but why did you say it ? Why — er — oh, I wish 
you hadn’t ! Why are you men always the same ? Why 
can’t you be content as you are?” 

“ Well, we never are. We — that is to say, I — have 
been content enough all these years, — thirty-two of 
them, — but you can’t go on being content for ever, you 
know. You would stick fast.” 

“ Oh, yes ; in a general way.” 

But is it quite impossible, Miss Joan?” 

“ Oh, yes. Sir Robert, it’s quite impossible. Now we 
can never be friends again. It is too bad of you.” 

There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be friends. I’m 
very sorry if I have entirely misunderstood you. You — 
you — needn’t visit it on me.” 

“ Oh, Sir Robert, you — I don’t know what to say.” 

“ Say ' yes/ ” he put in, eagerly. 

Oh, I can’t say ' yes.’ ” 

A new idea dawned upon Robert Masters. “ There is^ 
— then, there is somebody else? You — you are not en- 
gaged?” 

“ No, I’m not exactly engaged.” 

“You don’t dislike me?” 

“ Not at all.” 

“ In fact, you rather like me than otherwise ?” 

“ I like you very much.” 

“ Then what’s to hinder my project from going 
through ?” 


149 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Oh, you don’t understand. I — I couldn’t. I’m not — 
that is to say, I don’t want to marry you.” 

But you don’t want to quarrel with me ? There’s no 
earthly reason why we should quarrel. I never could 
see, when a man particularly wants to marry a lady and 
she doesn’t see matters in the same light, or other circum- 
stances intervene, they need be at daggers drawn. I’m 
not going to be at daggers drawn with you. Miss Joan. 
If I can’t have you for my wife, then I should like to 
continue being your friend.” 

Would you, really? That is very sweet of you; that 
is really what I call nice of you.” 

Yes, I think it is rather nice,” he admitted. “ It’s a 
bit of a let-down for a man when he finds he isn’t as 
acceptable as he flattered himself he might be; but to a 
really starving man half a loaf is certainly better than no 
bread.” 

“ Then we’ll make a compact,” said Joan. “ We won’t 
talk of this again, we won’t refer to it, or revert to it in 
any way. We will be friends — we will be real friends. 
Sir Robert, without any idea of anything else.” 

“ Yes, we will be real friends. Oh, we’ll be out-and- 

out pals, eh ? And then, if people begin to talk ” 

I don’t mind.” 

“ But they will, you know ; particularly if I go to 
Rockborough. I should like to go to Rockborough, if 
you don’t mind. When I have once made my plans, I 
hate disarranging them. I had quite settled in my own 
mind that I would spend August at Rockborough, and if 

150 


REAL FRIENDS 


you don^t mind I should like to carry out my original 
programme/’ 

She smiled. A thought flashed into her brain that it 
was not very long ago that Sir Robert Masters had 
quickly and easily, apparently quite without effort, aban- 
doned his intention of going that year to fish in Northern 
waters. 

“ I hate changing my plans, too,” she said. "‘If 
you want to go to Rockborough, there’s no earthly rea- 
son why you shouldn’t; but not with any idea that I — 
I ” 

“ That you will change your mind ?” he asked. 

“ i don’t think I shall change my mind. Sir Robert. 
I ” 

“ There’s somebody else,” said he. “ I know it ; I can 
see it in your face.” 

“ Yes,” she said, looking at him frankly, “ there is 
somebody else.” 

“ You never told me about him.” 

I couldn’t tell you. There’s nothing to tell. I’m not 
engaged — perhaps I never shall be. I haven’t even prom- 
ised to wait, and I don’t think he has. But I promised 
myself ; and it wouldn’t be fair to you not to tell you — 
not to tell you everything.” 

“ He is here ? In Blankhampton ?” 

“ Oh, no ; he is in India.” 

“ Oh, I see. Forgive me. Miss Joan. I’m awfully 
sorry that I should have touched upon a subject that must 
be not a little painful to you. Forgive me for what I said 

151 


LITTLE JOAN 


to-day — forgive me, and forget it. I won’t refer to it 
again. And we are friends?” 

“ Oh, yes,” said Joan, putting her hand into his, I 
hope for always.” 

He certainly behaved admirably, both then and after- 
wards. He stayed with her until it was his customary 
time to leave, and then he left her, looking just as usual. 
There were no crushed airs about him, no sulking, no 
pettishness — simply a frank and manly acceptance of the 
inevitable. 

“ I shall see you to-morrow,” he said, because I have 
to bring you that book I promised to get for you. It will 
come to-morrow morning.” 

“ That’s awfully good of you,” said Joan. “ Good-bye 
till to-morrow.” 

She watched him go along the garden, down the ter- 
races which led to the lower gate, with a very grave face. 
“ That’s a clean, honest, wholesome gentleman,” she said 
to herself. “ Joan Delamere, Joan Delamere, why couldn’t 
you marry him? Why does the other come in between 
you? Why are you as you are ? Oh, Joan, oh, Joan, you 
never did a crueller thing in your life than when you 
stabbed that man right through the very heart.” 

But there was no trace, when she and Sir Robert Mas- 
ters met again, that he had been conscious of stabs 
through the heart or anywhere else. He behaved exactly 
as if nothing had happened, as if nothing particular had 
taken place between them. He took the same open inter- 
est in her and all her doings, addressed her as “ Miss 


152 


REAL FRIENDS 


Joan,” just as he had done from the beginning, expatiated 
to outside observers on the excellent results of a rest in 
Blankhampton, and finally transferred himself to Rock- 
borough without any apologies to anybody. 

With Rockborough he was charmed ; indeed, his pleas- 
ure was pathetic. “ I can’t imagine,” he said to Joan, the 
very first evening, when they were walking down the 
cliff together to hear the band play on the wide terrace at 
the foot thereof, “ I can’t imagine what people want to 
run away from their own country for. Always seems to 
me that you get the best of it in England — good band, 
nice, good-tempered, well-dressed people, good air, per- 
fect scenery, and a something in the way of charm that 
no foreign place that I have ever been to possesses.” 

I don’t know much about foreign places,” said Joan. 
“ I should like to. It has always been rather a dream of 
mine to travel.” 

Yes, you get the best of it when you dream about it,” 
said he, decidedly. “ There are one or two little places in 
Germany that are interesting — I mean that are nice to live 
in for a few weeks. South of France isn’t bad, but of 
course I don’t know it very well. I used to go there when 
I was a boy, and my mother was an invalid, and I used to 
spend my Christmas holidays with her.” 

Is your mother living ?” 

“ No ; my mother is dead. I have very few relations. 
I have a sister, but she was married years and years ago ; 
and I haven’t seen very much of her, because she’s in 
India, you know.” 


153 


LITTLE JOAN 


Oh, really r 

Yes. Of course, I write to her sometimes. I write 
to her on her birthday, Christmas, and on other occasions 
of that kind. That’s not like being pals with a sister who 
lives in the next street.” 

“ I don’t know. I couldn’t imagine drifting away from 
any of my people. We are an awfully united family. 
There are such a lot of us ; we have to be — I mean, we 
have never thought of being anything else. Now, my 
sister, who is out in Australia, she will be coming back 
by and by ; at least, I am not quite sure ; I rather fancy 
that something’s going on out there.” 

“ What sort of something ? Love affair ?” 

I fancy there’s somebody, or something, because 
she’s put off coming home several times. Of course, Eric 
wants to keep her as long as he possibly can, but I fancy, 
all the same, that she might possibly stay out there much 
longer than she dreamed of when she left home.” 


154 


CHAPTER XIX 


Between the Lines 


MONTH is soon gone when one is spending it hap- 



pily. The Robert Delameres had for twenty years 
past made a rule of spending August at Rockborough, 
taking always the same house on the Esplanade and living 
in great comfort and ease, so that Mr. Delamere might get 
full advantage of change and rest from professional 
worries. This year Joan had suggested that the house 
would be rather large for them, but Mr. Delamere would 
not hear of taking any other. 

'' No, no,'^ he said ; it isn’t necessary to use all the 
rooms because we happen to have them. I’m used to that 
house; I should hate any other one. It might have un- 
comfortable beds, or easy-chairs one couldn’t sit down 
in, and a dozen other objections. When you’ve got a 
thing that suits you, Joan, stick to it. It’s an excellent 
motto, and one I have always found to work admirably.” 

So they were at the same house which they had occu- 
pied for twenty years past, and there Robert Masters 
made himself as much at home as ever he had done at 
Riverside; in fact, except that he slept, breakfasted, and 
occasionally dined at his hotel, he might well have been 
supposed to be staying in the house. Agnes had a train 
of admirers and changed them from day to day; Joan’s 


LITTLE JOAN 


cavalier was always Robert Masters. There was only one 
break during the whole month, which was when he ran 
over to Blankhampton for the day to swear something 
before a Registrar, an official of which the little seaside 
town of Rockborough did not boast. It was astonishing 
how Joan missed him. She felt as if her other self had 
gone, and she felt it with a pang of reproach which made 
her for a few hours abjectly miserable. All the same, she 
was so glad to see Sir Robert when he came back again 
that she forgot her misery and was the gayest of the gay 
during the rest of the evening. He had found time to 
execute several small commissions for her in Blankhamp- 
ton, and he came round to the house just as they were 
finishing dinner, carrying several little white parcels 
hanging from a string. 

“Well, how was Blankhampton looking. Sir Robert?” 
cried Agnes, as he entered the dining-room. 

“ It was looking rather baked. Miss Agnes. I met three 
men I knew, who spoke very feelingly about the grind of 
being shut up in an oven during the hottest month of the 
year. But, then, soldiers must have something to grumble 
about. Miss Aggie. If the army hadn’t something to 
grumble about, I really don’t know what soldiers would 
do for a living ; and if there is a department in the whole 
of the service that wants overhauling, the cleansing of 
the Augean stable, the complete uprooting of the entire 
system, it is not the department to which an ordinary 
cavalry officer belongs.” 

“What department is it?” asked Joan. 

156 


BETWEEN THE LINES 


‘‘ By all accounts the Army Medical is in about the 
worst way that it is possible to conceive. I met a man 
not very long ago who told me a lot of things about the 
internal economy of the Army Medical Department. I 
met another chap yesterday, — at least, we had lunch to- 
gether at the Club, — who has just come down from Chert- 
sey Camp, a big station, as you know, with thousands of 
men in it. If you will believe me, this man told me that 
for three weeks they were without a clinical thermometer 
in the entire military hospital; they had no linseed to 
make poultices; they possessed two bronchitis kettles, 
one that was in holes, and the other which had never been 
used; they had never heard of oxygen, didn’t allow 
thyroid gland, and when a certain great personage stay- 
ing in the Camp was taken desperately ill, the doctors 
sent over to the hospital for some pilospongine, and there 
wasn’t an inch of it in the whole establishment; in fact, 
the doctors had never heard of it!” 

Then, what do they do if a man gets very ill ?” cried 
Agnes. 

“ Oh, if a chap gets very ill, he dies. If there is the 
smallest ailment that the medicos don’t understand, they 
invalid him out of the service — a grand system, in which 
the weakest goes to the wall and the devil takes the hind- 
most. I never heard a man rave in my life like the man 
who told me. And then he pathetically wound up : ' Poor 
chaps, they’ve only one life to live, after all I’ ” 

Do you think it is true?” said Joan. 

** Oh, I suppose so. The man wouldn’t dare make such 

157 


LITTLE JOAN 


statements as that if he hadn’t good grounds for them; 
in fact, to tell you the truth, he poured out such horrors 
to me all lunch-time that I had to have a liqueur brandy 
to pull myself together afterwards.” 

“ You don’t mean it?” 

I do mean it, solemnly. And then I got myself free 
on the plea of having commissions to do. I went to match 
your linens — I mean threads.” 

Yes, yes, linen threads,” said Joan. “ Well, it’s aw- 
fully kind of you. You might just as well have come 
round to dinner, all the same.” 

Thanks, very many. But I only got back in time to 
scramble into my clothes and get a very hurried dinner. 
By the bye. Miss Agnes, I have brought you some sweets 
from Bonner’s.” 

Have you really now ? That is very nice of you. I 
wonder if you know which kind of sweets I like?” 

“ I think so,” said Robert Masters, in his easiest tones. 

It is not difficult to find out in a shop where a young 
lady goes every day.” And he handed over an opulent- 
looking parcel to the laughing girl, who retired to the 
other end of the table with her younger sister, and in a 
moment the two ruddy heads were eagerly bent down 
over the box. 

“If you young people are going down to the Spa to- 
night,” said Mr. Delamere, as he rose from the table, 
“ you must go without me.” 

“ Why, dear?” exclaimed Joan. 

“ I have a couple of letters I must write. I forgot 
158 


BETWEEN THE LINES 


them, and must catch the nine o’clock post. So do you all 
go on when you feel inclined to do so, and I’ll come down 
and join you as soon as I have finished. Masters,” he 
added, you’ll have a smoke before you go, won’t you ? 
You look after him, Joan.” 

By the way, Mr. Delamere,” said Sir Robert, sud- 
denly, “ I’ve a packet of letters for you. I saw your son 
at the station ; he particularly wanted these conveyed 
to you. I’m so awfully sorry, I quite forgot that I had 
them in my pocket. And he said they were most im- 
portant.” 

The elder man took the letters with a smile and a 
word of thanks, and went away with them in his hand. 
The young people stayed for a few minutes, chatting 
gayly, and then the girls went and put on their evening 
wraps, and they went off together to the place of meeting 
for all sorts and conditions of people in Rockborough. 

Joan was inexpressibly happy that night. She was so 
happy that she hardly knew it — at least, she was hardly 
conscious of it. There was a sense of restfulness and 
repose about the company of Robert Masters that ap- 
pealed to her best nature. If anyone that evening had 
asked her suddenly whether she preferred Oswald Main- 
waring to Robert Masters, she would unhesitatingly have 
replied that Mainwaring had the preference; and yet, 
as she and her father, a couple of hours later, turned in 
at the gate of the house on the Esplanade, it was almost 
with a pang of dismay that she heard from him that 
among the letters Robert Masters had brought from 

159 


LITTLE JOAN 

Blankhampton was one for her with an Indian post- 
mark. 

There was always a little gathering around the dinner- 
table when they came in from an evening spent on the 
sea front, for the sharp sea air made them all as hungry 
as if they had been to a theatre. There was generally 
a dish of sandwiches, a cake to cut, and a jar of bis- 
cuits, while whiskey and soda and claret were there with 
which to wash them down. Joan put the letter down on 
the table, and went on talking to her father as if it were 
but an ordinary note ; but by the time she got to her bed- 
room her pulses were beating fast, and her heart was in 
her mouth. 

It was quite an ordinary letter. It told that he had 
been laid up with a sharp attack of fever, that he loathed 
India, and meant to get out of it at the earliest possible 
opportunity; that, as far as making or saving money 
went, the place was a beastly fraud, and the writer more 
than hinted that the fate which had overshadowed all his 
early years had begun to dog his life again now. 

What did he mean by that? She laid the letter down 
with a great sense of bitter disappointment. What did 
he mean? Was he thinking about money? Of course. 
Poor thing, poor fellow, he was always thinking about 
money, because he had such a want of it, and so little of 
it seemed to come his way. But the fate that had shad- 
owed all his early years? Of course, he meant that he 
would have to marry for money. Could that possibly 
be it? Was he delicately hinting that he might not in 

i6o 


BETWEEN THE LINES 


the end prove as faithful to his heart’s love as he had 
sworn to be ? 

The hot tears rushed smarting to her eyes at the very 
thought that he had found it necessary to take so round- 
about a way of breaking the news to her. Besides, it 
was so unnecessary. She took up the letter and read it 
again. It was unmistakably the handiwork of a very 
unhappy man. Well, she would write to him at once; 
she would set his mind free. He should be free — he was 
free. 

And so, instead of getting into bed, she sat down at the 
little writing-table near the window, where the sweet salt 
air was blowing freshly in upon her, and wrote to the man 
she loved. 

“ I can quite easily read between the lines of your 
letter,” she began. I wish you had written to me in 
plainer terms; it would have been easier for both of 
us. I know exactly what you are feeling, dear Ozzie. 
I have longed to have some word of you, to know how 
things were going, to know if you are very unhappy 
out there. And now I almost wish that you had not 
written. 

'' My dear, you are as free as air to do what and as 
you like. We agreed on that, if you remember; and I 
wouldn’t dream of going back from my bargain. I am — 
well, not quite what I used to call happy, because our 
house has never been the same since our terrible trouble. 
We are at this moment at Rockborough, but we go home 

II i6i 


LITTLE JOAN 


next week, and if you find it necessary to write to me 
again, write to me there. I don’t think, dear, that I’ll try 
to write you a long chit-chat letter full of news. Some- 
how, in the face of yours, it seems so out of place. I 
feel that the essential thing is that I should tell you you 
are free in every sense of the word. 

“ I have only now to say ‘ God bless you always.’ It 
is the sincere wish of your faithful friend, 

^‘JoAN Delamere.” 

So that was the end of it all — the end of it all. She 
had loved with every fibre of her being; nay, she did 
love. Her hands were trembling, her eyes were smarting 
with tears, and the painful, vivid past came back, as it 
were, borne upon the sea-laden air. Oh,* should she ever 
smell the odour of brine again without this moment of 
pain coming back to her ! 

But it wasn’t his fault. What was a man to do, a man 
of position, in debt, no money, breaking his heart in a 
country and amid a life that he loathed and detested? 
What was he to do ? Nothing, nothing, nothing. And for 
her there only remained one thing, to send off on its long 
journey the missive which would tell him that old ties 
were snapped in twain. 


162 


CHAPTER XX 


Coming Home 

I T is a hard task to describe closely the feelings of little 
Joan at this juncture of her career. Having finished 
the letter to Oswald Mainwaring, and put the requisite 
number of stamps on it, she set it in a conspicuous place 
on her toilet-table and, going to the window, looked out 
into the night. It was very calm and still. The sky was 
of such a deep blue that the stars looked like living jewels 
set in a bed of liquid sapphire ; she could catch now and 
again a gleam upon the water, and she could hear the 
steady rhythmical splashing of the waves upon the rock- 
bound shore. All Rockborough seemed to be asleep. 
It was an early place, where those who came for health 
and recreation lived as simple a life as if they were in a 
little German spa. There was never a sound of revelry 
by night in Rockborough, unless it was in the fishing 
town, which stretched right up either side of the bay. 
She felt, somehow, as if a great load had fallen off her. 
The tears were still smarting on her cheeks; her heart 
was heavy, heavy as lead ; and yet she felt that she had 
come to know the worst of life. There had been this 
feeling always that something would arise to come 
between her and Ozzie. She sat down there by the 
window, and resting her chin upon the palms of her 
163 


LITTLE JOAN 


hands, she let her mind slip back to those quiet, glorious 
days when he had been the main note of interest in her 
life. Dear, handsome, unfortunate, tender-hearted, kind, 
and charming Ozzie. She began to feel, in a dull, dim 
kind of way, as a condemned person may feel when he 
knows that all chance of reprieve has come to an end, 
when he can feel the touch of the rope about his neck. 

Well, her little love-story had come to an end. Ozzie 
was going to carry out his original programme; he was 
going to sell himself to the highest bidder. And she — 
well, she was almost glad that the blow had fallen. 

At last she shut down the window and got into bed, not 
with any idea of sleeping. And yet she did sleep, fell 
asleep like a child, and awoke the following morning when 
the maid appeared at her bedside with her early cup of 
tea. She thought the situation over while she was drink- 
ing it. It was all over between her and Ozzie. He had 
cried off his bargain; he wanted to be free. She had 
only now to wait until he ratified the breaking of the very 
shadowy bond between them by replying to her letter. 

“ Something has happened to you,” said Robert Mas- 
ters, when they met a couple of hours later. What 
is it?” 

Nothing.” 

Are you sure ?” 

“ Yes. What makes you think so?” 

“ I think so because I see a difference in you.” 

“ Oh, nonsense! I think IVe got a touch of headache 
this morning. It’s nothing.” 

164 


COMING HOME 


“ Well, I thought — I thought there was a difference. I 
thought something had happened to you ; that was all.” 

It flashed into her mind that his had been the hand to . 
deal the blow to make the difference. Well, he didn’t 
know anything about that. It was no use questioning 
him. It would be like asking him to say over again what 
he had said a few weeks previously. 

She made an enormous effort that day to be gay. They 
were going on some little expedition into the country to 
eat lunch at some gardens five or six miles away, a lunch 
of strawberries and things — you know the kind of lunch : 
salmon out of the river hard by, a chicken out of the 
adjacent poultry-yard, and strawberries freshly gathered. 
Robert Masters thought that he had never seen Joan so 
gay in manner, and so merry in herself, in all the months 
that he had known her. He was certain that something 
had happened to cause the change. But still, if she 
wouldn’t confide in him, he was compelled to remain with 
his doubt unsatisfied. 

So the incident passed over; the stay at Rockborough 
came to an end, and the Delameres went back to Riverside. 
Then, indeed, Robert Masters betook himself away for 
a time from Blankhampton. He had business to do in 
London, and a great many visits to pay before the 
autumn shooting. I think if he had asked Joan to marry 
him any time during the month that followed their re- 
turn from Rockborough, she would have accepted him, 
and there would have been an end of my story. Not 
that she was conscious of it. If anyone at that time had 

165 


LITTLE JOAN 


suggested to her that she would in all probability one 
day be Robert Masters’s wife, she would have scouted 
the idea with scorn, for it had become part of Joan’s 
religion to be faithful to Mainwaring. Therefore, being 
unconscious, she made no sign to him that a second 
declaration would be welcome, and Robert Masters 
never once thought of making it. 

He wrote to her every few days after they parted, 
long, chatty, friendly letters, such as any woman, young 
or old, likes to receive, telling her of his doings, unfold- 
ing his plans, asking for news of her and hers. 

So September went over and October came in, and 
just as the second week of October was drawing to a 
close she had news of Mainwaring. By then sufficient 
time had elapsed for her to receive an answer to her 
letter, and as she had Indian letters that morning, she 
knew that there was no letter from him by that mail. 
Well, it was possible he had been away, gone on a trip 
somewhere or other, and that he had missed the chance 
of writing. She must possess her soul in patience yet 
another week. Then later in the day she received a 
message from him. It was brief, but to the point: 

Consider letter unwritten. Coming home. Main- 
waring.” 

Consider letter unwritten ! Consider letter unwritten ! 
What could it mean? Coming home! That meant that 
he was going to start at once. He would be home in 
about three weeks. Something must have happened; 
some change must have taken place in his arrangements, 

i66 


COMING HOME 


possibly in his fortunes, and she must possess her soul 
in patience for at least three weeks. 

I may as well own to it that the following three weeks 
were the most terrible time of suspense that Joan had 
ever known in her life. And even then he did not come 
in until nearly ten more days had gone by; and then he 
came walking up the drive in the old accustomed way, 
looking, except that he dressed in black, very much as 
he had used to do ; a little browner perhaps, a little older, 
but he came into the room with the same quick, alert 
manner that she knew so well, shut the door quickly 
behind him, and seemed to make but one step to the fire- 
place by which she was standing. 

'' My Joan ! Little girl ! It’s all over. All the waiting, 
the suspense, everything. You and I are going to be as 
happy as the angels in heaven.” 

“ I — I don’t understand,” said Joan. 

“ It doesn’t matter the least in the world whether you 
understand. There’s only one thing that either you or I 
need understand of each other, and that,” bending, his 
head down to the level of hers, that is what we under- 
stood very well when we parted.” 

'' Something has happened ?” said Joan. Her lips 
were trembling, her breath came in gasps, her eyes were 
wide open with apprehension, her heart was beating 
like a sledge-hammer. 

Oh, don’t you understand ?” He took her little face 
between his hands, and looked down into it long and 
lovingly. Don’t you understand ? It’s all fallen away 

167 


LITTLE JOAN 


from me, that hideous burden of poverty that I have been 
groaning under all my life. I hate to rejoice in some- 
body else’s misfortunes, but there’s nobody between me 
and the title now, Joan ; and I feel rather chilly sitting up 
here in state. Won’t you come and share it with me?” 

I don’t understand,” said Joan. 

“No? I thought perhaps you might have heard. 
Haven’t you seen the papers?” 

“ Yes. I haven’t seen anything about you.” 

“ Oh, it’s too dreadful to tell you — too dreadful. Ken- 
neth Mainwaring is dead, — carried off in one week by 
malignant fever. It killed the old man. He never held 
up his head again. He had a stroke and died before 
they could communicate with me.” 

“ And you are Lord Moresby ?” 

“ I am.” 

“You are Lord Moresby?” 

“ You don’t love me any the less for that? Why, little 
girl, little girl, you wouldn’t have minded if I’d come into 
a royal kingdom, would you? You are — we’ll be married 
at once. We won’t wait. My mourning can serve as a 
decent excuse for having it all fixed up, so that we can 
go away and try to make up for the time that we have 
wasted.” 

“ Oh, I couldn’t — I couldn’t!” said Joan. “ I couldn’t.” 

“You couldn’t what?” 

“ I couldn’t be married — not yet.” 

“ You couldn’t be married ! Do you realize what you 
are saying?” 


i68 


COMING HOME 


I think so. It’s so sudden. It’s come upon me with 
such a shock. I’d made up my mind to let you go, Ozzie 
— I made up my mind to let you go. I’ve been steeling 
myself all these weeks, all these months. And then to 
have you come in and tell me this. Oh, it’s horrible, it’s 
horrible !” 

He saw that she was shaking like a leaf from head to 
foot. She covered her eyes with her hands, and he 
noticed how thin and transparent they were. You have 
been ill ! You have been ill, Joan !” he exclaimed. 

No, not ill.” 

Oh, but you are thin ; you are pale. You have been 
breaking your heart. My poor little girl, it has been too 
much for you ! I understand — I sympathize. I felt just 
like it myself — too shy to come back to you, almost too 
nervous to take my ticket for Blankhampton. And yet, 
Joan, I didn’t waste any time on the road ; oh, no, not a 
day, not an hour, not a moment. But you’ll get used to 
it. I’ll see your father to-night. I’ll explain everything; 
how hopeless it all was, how much we loved each other. 
You do love me?” 

“ Oh, yes, Ozzie.” 

“You are sure you love me? Why, of course. How 
absurd! As if I could insult you by doubting it. For- 
give me. I didn’t mean to put such a question to you. I 
have been so miserable, Joan, that sometimes I asked my- 
self if I was in my right senses. Sometimes I used to 
sit and look at your photograph and wonder if I ever 

knew you, if you ever belonged to me, if I ever really 

169 


LITTLE JOAN 


Oh, what rubbish I’m talking! We’ll talk rubbish for 
an hour or so, darling, and then we’ll talk hard, common- 
place sense. And then I’ll have a long business talk to 
your father, and then we’ll get married, and then we shall 
come to our senses, don’t you think?” 

I don’t know what my father will say.” 

“Say? Be jolly glad, I should think. I know I am. 
I don’t believe you are. And yet you must be. Poor 
little soul ! I’ve upset you. I ought to have broken it to 
you. I ought to have written, wired, done something. I 
didn’t think what a shock it would be to you. It never 
occurred to me.” Then he drew her into his arms once 
more. “ How I have hungered for you all through the 
hot, stifling, weary, sultry, breathless days; all through 
the dead, nerveless nights. It’s a beastly life. I’ve heard 
fellows talk of it with joy; I’ve heard women rave about 
the delights of India. Oh, God, if they knew. But now 
it’s all over ; it’s come to an end. I was so sorry for the 
old lord, so sorry for that poor young man, and his 
mother — stripped of everything in a few days. And yet, 
I can’t help remembering the old saw, that one man’s 

poison is another man’s meat, and Why, Joan, 

Joan I” 

But Joan did not answer. On the contrary, she slipped 
out of his arms in a dead faint at his feet. 


170 


CHAPTER XXI 


The New Lord Moresby 
HE new Lord Moresby was very discreet. When he 



realized that little Joan had collapsed in a fainting 


heap upon the floor, he promptly picked her up and put 
her on the sofa which stood at right angles to the fire- 
place. Then he rang the bell for William. 

Oh, bring a little brandy and some water, will you ?’^ 
he said. “ Miss Joan isn’t quite well. Pm afraid she 
fainted.” 

“ Certainly, sir,” said William, who had no idea of the 
change in Moresby’s fortunes. 

The good man bustled out, and came back in a few 
minutes with some brandy, followed by one of the maids 
carrying a carafe of water. 

I will just unloosen Miss Joan’s neck,” she said. 
“ She’s fainted once or twice like this. You remember, 
William, just before we went to Rockborough, how ill 
she was?” 

I knew she had been ill. And she declared she 
hadn’t,” said Moresby. “Can you do that?” he added 
to the maid, who was endeavouring to take a brooch out 
of her young mistress’s collar. 

“ Yes, sir. The brooch has caught in the lace, that’s 
all. There it is. Now, just a little water, William — a 


LITTLE JOAN 


little on her hands, and a little on her temples. There — 
yes, that’s it. Now a little drop of the brandy. Make 
it rather strong. No, don’t lift her up, sir. You should 
lay them down flat when they are like this, as flat as you 
can. She’ll come to in a minute. A wee drop of that 
brandy, William.” 

They raised Joan’s head, put the brandy and water 
to her lips, and then laid her flat upon the sofa, the maid 
taking the pillows from under her head. “ She’s coming 
round,” she said. “ I’d just open that window, William.” 

With a sigh and a shiver Joan Delamere came back to 
her own senses again. 

‘‘ Oh, dear, is that you, Margaret ?” she asked, feebly. 

What happened ? Did I topple over, or something ? 
How stupid of me!” 

'' Never mind. Miss Joan. Just drink a little of this. 
You haven’t been quite well. A little brandy and water 
will soon pull you together again.” 

Oh, not brandy, Margaret.” 

Yes, miss, if you please. You know what the doctor 
said last time — a little brandy and water.” 

By dint of some persuasion and coaxing, she got Joan 
to gulp down the contents of the glass which she held to 
her lips. Then Joan struggled to a sitting position and 
looked up piteously at Moresby. 

“ Dear me, how stupid of me 1 I must have gone off 
completely.” 

‘‘ You did. You nearly frightened me out of my wits. 
I thought you had died.” 


172 


THE NEW LORD MORESBY 


If I were you, Miss Joan, Ed sit in this big chair,’' 
said the maid ; not where you are now. A cup of hot 
tea will pull you together, and you won’t know that you 
have been any the worse. If you should feel inclined to 
go off again. Miss Joan, have a little sal volatile. I’ll 
go and bring it down, so that it will be ready.” 

She’s such a good girl,” said Joan to Moresby, as 
Margaret went out of the room, '' so sympathetic and 
kind. I’m awfully sorry I gave you such a fright.” 

He drew a chair near to her and sat down, taking hold 
of her hand. “ Joan, you did give me a fright,” he said, 
looking at her with grave, kind eyes. “ I thought it was 
all over with you for a minute. I’m not accustomed to 
seeing anybody go down as if they had been struck by a 
mighty hand. You know, it’s made me feel quite sick.” 

And, true enough, he was shaking all over. It was 
then her turn to comfort him, and presently William 
brought the tea, and some of the little hot cakes that 
Moresby remembered of old, and which he told her he 
had yearned fiercely for during his exile in India. 

“ Isn’t it wonderful,” he said, “ what a turn of the 
wheel brings? Here was I only the other day feeling I 
hadn’t got the faintest chance of ever sitting in this room 
and eating your little hot cakes again; and here were 
you feeling that you had got to give me up ; and yet this 
blessed afternoon we are here together, and it is the 
beginning of always. Oh, Joan, Joan, is it wicked to 
rejoice in my good fortune?” 

She stirred uneasily. '' No, I don’t think it is exactly 

173 


LITTLE JOAN 


wicked. It would have been if you had done anything 
to bring it about. But you didn’t, did you?” 

No, not in the least ; of course not. Joan, you are 
not half as glad as I am.” 

“ I — I am not very well,” said Joan. I — you see, 
Ozzie, you have had time to get used to it; you have 
known the truth for some weeks. Now, I never suspected 
a thing until this afternoon. I only knew you were 
coming home. I didn’t know why, or how. It has been 
rather a shock to me.” 

I know. It’s all my stupid, blundering fault. I 
haven’t common patience with myself. I suppose I can 
stay to dinner?” 

Oh, yes, of course.” 

‘‘ Did you tell them I was coming home ?” 

“ No.” 

“ You never told them about my having come into the 
title?” 

How could I?” 

“ Ah, I forgot — yes, I forgot. We’ll be married at 
once, Joan.” 

“You said so before,” said Joan; “and I said that I 
should have to get used to it, didn’t I ?” 

“ Oh, but you will be used to it in a week. I was.” 

“ No, you can’t be used to it yet. Have you been to 
see your new house?” 

“ No, I came to see you. I didn’t bother about the 
place, or anything of that kind. I didn’t even go and see 
the town house. I came straight to you.” 

174 


THE NEW LORD MORESBY 


For a brief space Joan did not speak. Then she put 
out one little slim hand and laid it over his. It was 
very sweet and good of you, Ozzie,’’ she said, gently; 
yes, it was very good of you. I feel so stupid, as if 

words were inadequate, as if You see, I had quite 

given you up. I had quite made up my mind that I had 
to let you go. I wasn’t even sure that you wanted me 
any more. I knew a girl once,” she went on, who was 
engaged to a man in India. If you had talked to her 
for ten thousand years, you wouldn’t have made her 
believe that anything could come between them; you 
wouldn’t have got her to believe that the man didn’t 
care for her. He did care for her, but on her side it 
was adoration. She idolized him. Then one morning 
she got a letter to say it was all at an end, that he didn’t 
care about her any more — he liked somebody else better. 

He had cared, oh, yes, but ” 

“ And you thought that I might be the same young 
man over again? Then, you see, little girl, you have 
made a mistake; and for that you will have to do pen- 
ance. Gad,” he said, catching hold of her and bending 
his head so that he could look right into her clear eyes, 
“ it’s a good deal more likely that the boot’s on the other 
leg this time. I don’t believe, little girl, you are half as 
glad to see me as I am to see you. I don’t believe you 
have thought about me half as much as I have thought 
about you. Now, own up. Tell me, are you really glad 
to see me?” 

Oh, Ozzie, you know I am glad to see you. You 
175 


LITTLE JOAN 


know I have thought about you, dreamed about you, 
longed for you, broken my heart over you.” 

“ Did you think, dear little girl, that I wasn’t dreaming 
about you, longing for you, yearning fiercely for the time 
when I should get home; wondering whether I should 
ever get home sometimes, whether I should die out in 
that horrid climate, and at other times wondering whether 
I should get back to find you gone, married by some 
other fellow ? Every week when the mail came in I have 
scanned the English papers, and read that first column 
as I never read it in my life before. Nay, I did more 
than that. I used to go up every mail day and call on a 
lady in the regiment because I knew she always got the 
Queen out from England, and I used to read all the 
announcements of engagements — you know the column 
I mean, ‘ a marriage has been arranged,’ etc., and every 
time I breathed a sigh of relief to find that your name 
wasn’t there.” 

“ I know ; yes, I know,” said Joan, in a distressed tone, 
exactly what you are feeling, I know exactly what you 
were feeling then, I knew it all along. And yet — yet ” 

“ And yet what ?” he asked. 

Do you think we shall ever be quite the same again, 
Ozzie?” 

The same ! Why, what do you mean ?” 

Well, it all seemed so hopeless. You made up your 
mind that you had to let me go, didn’t you?” 

In a sense I did.” 

You had someone else in your thoughts ?” 

176 


THE NEW LORD MORESBY 


“ In my heart, never/’ 

'' Not in your heart. In your thoughts. It is — oh, I 
don’t know how to say it, but it is never the same when 
two people have really made up their minds that they 
have got to part.” 

But circumstances ” 

Yes, I know.” She hesitated, stopped short, looked 
at him with lovely distressed eyes because she hardly 
knew how to frame the words that were trembling on 
her lips. “ Circumstances have been very kind. They 
stepped in, and everything has come out smooth; but it 
isn’t quite the same being rich now, and being Lord 
Moresby. You have come back, but if you had con- 
tinued to be poor, you never would have come back. 
And I felt somehow, in some strange mysterious way, 
that you — you liked me less than money.” 

My dear child, I know what you mean,” he said, 
with a certain dignity which became him infinitely. “ For 
myself, I have never thought it any sign of love in a 
man to want to drag the woman he cares about down to 
abject poverty. You, who have never known what it 
was, little girl, to live m less style than this house; you 

who have always had everything that you wanted, ac- 

cording to your station, were out of my reach. At the 
time Lord Moresby died, I was on the point of chucking 
the army and trying to find some sort of work to do. 
But there, what work can a man do who has given the 
best years of his life, all his training time, to making 

war? By great good luck, and Lord Moresby’s influ- 

177 


12 


LITTLE JOAN 


ence, I might have managed to get made Chief Constable 
somewhere or other. But a Chief Constable who has 
nothing beside his pay, and is, moreover, over head and 
ears in debt, is no catch for a girl like you. It wasn’t 
that I loved you less — oh, no; it was that I loved you 
too much to wish to drag you down. I shouldn’t have 
had the impudence to go to your father and suggest that 
he should give his consent to our marriage. But now, 
as you put it a minute ago, circumstances have arranged 
otherwise for us, and I have brought everything that I 
have and am, and laid them at your feet. Dear little 
girl, we’ll forget that there has been even the shadow of 
parting between us; it only was a shadow, after all. 
The substance is ours, and we must take care not to lose 
the substance for the shadow. By the bye, what’s that?” 

“ It sounds like my father,” said Joan. 

“ Then,” said he, hurriedly, “ I’ll go and get it over 
at once.” 

Not before dinner?” cried Joan. 

Yes, now, this very minute as ever is. I take it 
nobody will be more pleased to hear my news than he 



caught her in his arms, kissed her passionately, 
;t roughly, and without another word turned and 
^ out of the room. 



178 


CHAPTER XXII 


Ten Minutes’ Chat 

W HEN Robert Delamere saw the man whom he 
had known as Oswald Mainwaring standing in 
front of him, he gave vent to an exclamation of surprise. 
“ Why, my dear Mainwaring, is that really you ?’' 
''How do you do, Mr. Delamere?” said the other, 
easily. " I hope you are as glad to see me as I am to be 
back again.” 

" Certainly, I am very glad indeed. When did you 
come? Have you left India?” 

" Yes, I have left India for good,” said Moresby, in a 
tone of quiet satisfaction. " India and I didn’t love each 
other, and I was very glad when circumstances enabled 
me to shake the dust of India from off my feet. I would 
like to have ten minutes’ chat with you.” 

" I’m sure I am delighted. Will you have it now, or 
will you wait till after dinner?” 

" I’ll have it now, thank you,” said Moresby. " I 
wanted to consult you on a very important, and to me a 
very delicate, piece of business.” 

" Certainly. Come into my own room. I never like 
to give advice except under proper conditions.” He 
turned up the electric light as he reached the door of his 
own special sanctum, and motioned to Moresby to go in 
before him. " You’ll have a smoke and a drink ?” 


179 


LITTLE JOAN 


Thanks, I’ll have a cigarette, if you’ll give me one — 
not anything to drink. I — Mr. Delamere, I’m not the 
same man that I was when you knew me before.” 

Really ? What has happened to you ?” 

My circumstances have entirely changed. If I had 
been free — free to speak, that is — I should have sought 
this interview within a month of my first becoming ac- 
quainted with your family, but I did not feel free to 
speak, and therefore I went to India without saying any- 
thing.” 

“ I suppose it’s Joan,” said Mr. Delamere, looking 
steadily at his visitor. 

'' Yes, of course it’s Joan. It couldn’t be anybody else. 
I’m a wealthy man now, Mr. Delamere; I’m not called 
Mainwaring any more.” 

Why, what do you mean ?” 

Simply this — that my relative, the Earl of Moresby, 
died recently, and died not very long after the death of 
his only son. I’ve succeeded to everything.” 

“ You mean to say that you are the Earl of Moresby?” 

'' I am. I hope that won’t make me any the less 
eligible in your eyes as a prospective son-in-law?” 

“ Well, it depends upon Joan. Of course, if Joan 
wants to marry you, and you want to marry her, I take 
it that I have very little to do with the matter. I must 
say I should object to one of my girls marrying a man 
who couldn’t keep her in at least as much comfort as she 
has been used to; but that objection being removed, my 
dear fellow, I shall say ‘ God bless you both’ as heartily 

i8o 


TEN MINUTES’ CHAT 


as I can bring myself to say it to anyone who comes 
barefacedly to rob me of one of my girls.” 

Come, come, Mr. Delamere, you wouldn’t like your 
girls to remain unmarried?” 

No, I suppose no one would wish that. One always 
wants one’s boys, and one’s girls too, to marry as one 
did one’s self ; but when you take away Joan, you leave 
me a very lonely old man.” 

“ But you have other daughters.” 

“ Yes, I have other daughters, nice girls and good 
girls, but there’s not one of them just what Joan is. 
However, I don’t want to dwell upon that. You want to 
marry Joan ; Joan wants to marry you. There’s nothing 
more to be said. I suppose all questions of business can 
be settled later on.” 

Oh, yes. I scarcely know how I stand yet. But, all 
the same, I would like to be married as soon as possible.” 

“ Well, find out first how you stand,” said Mr. Dela- 
mere, easily. “ You see, that’s only ordinary care and 
forethought. I shouldn’t like Joan to be in the position 
of your wife, and perhaps have to turn out without a 
penny. She must have proper provision and proper set- 
tlements, and all that kind of thing. It’s early days to 
talk about the wedding.” 

“ You forget, Mr. Delamere, I have been in love with 
Joan for two years.” 

“ Yes, I daresay the time has seemed long. I thought 
you liked her. I wondered a little that you never came 
to me before.” 

i8i 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ I had nothing to come about. I couldn’t come and 
say, ‘ I am a pauper, over head and ears in debt, but I 
love your daughter, and I want her to engage herself to 
me,’ on a perfectly forlorn and probably a fruitless hope. 
I hadn’t impudence enough for that, Mr. Delamere.” 

'' No, no. Well, Lord Moresby, to call you by your 
new name, which I suppose you have scarcely got used 
to, we’ll talk about that next month, when you do know 
where you are. For the present, of course you’ll dine 
with us to-night?” 

Lord Moresby glanced at the clock, and then looked 
deprecatingly down his long, lithe person. 

“ Oh, never mind your clothes,” said Mr. Delamere. 

You look very nice. I’ll warrant Joan thinks so,” he 
added, with a laugh. You shall come up to my dress- 
ing-room and wash your hands. Your clothes will be 
quite good enough for us.” 

He clapped his hand on Moresby’s shoulder, and gave 
him a bit of a push towards the room wherein he knew 
Joan would be. “ Come along. I’ll just go and speak 
to the child,” he said, forging his own footsteps in the 
same direction. Ah, Joan, little woman, so you are 
going to leave me?” 

“ Not for a long time. Daddy,” said Joan, regardless of 
the long face that Moresby pulled at the suggestion. 

“ Not for a long time, eh? To judge by the impatience 
of this young man here, I should think — well, well, it’s 
all right, little girl. As long as you are happy and satis- 
fied, that’s the chief thing. I was happy myself,” he 

182 


TEN MINUTES’ CHAT 


went on, drawing her close to him and looking down 
upon her with infinite tenderness, “ from the first day to 
the very last. I wouldn’t stand in the way of one of you 
children for any money. All I want to know is that you 
shall make up your minds definitely, and be happy.” 

“ I think there is no doubt, sir ” began Moresby. 

No, no, my dear fellow, there is no doubt. It will 
be all right. You have been proved by a long separation. 
By the bye, have you been corresponding?” 

'' No,” said Joan, '' we haven’t corresponded.” 

'' You were left absolutely free ?” 

“We left each other absolutely free,” said Joan. 

“ Well,” said her father, “ it’s a grand thing when 
young people remain faithful and true in the face of 
what looks like the blackest adversity. I hope, my dears, 
that you’ll live many and many a long year after I have 
gone to finish my love-story in another world, and that 
you will feel just the same at the end as you do now.” 

There was an instant’s silence. Then Joan, with a 
sharp little cry, wrenched herself free of her father’s 
embracing arm and ran out of the room. 

“ Ah, she’s a tender-hearted little thing,” said he, look- 
ing after her. “ I’ve had one or two signs to tell me that 
our great loss is as fresh to her to-day as it was when 
it fell upon us. Now, I don’t feel like that. I feel she’s 
gone into the next room, and that she cannot come back 
into this one; but she’s there, and she’ll be there when 
my turn comes. Well, now, it’s no use looking on the dis- 
mal side any more. Come up to my dressing-room.” 

183 


LITTLE JOAN 


Meantime, Joan, with her heart beating and her pulses 
all on fire, had flown up to her own room. In that sanc- 
tuary she shut herself, and, going to the dressing-table, 
sat down there and looked long and earnestly at herself 
in the glass. She knew that she ought to be radiantly, 
brilliantly happy. The great love of her life had come 
back, no longer poor, no longer embarrassed, no longer a 
mere soldier, almost a soldier of fortune, but rich and 
powerful. He had been absolutely faithful to her. His 
first thought, after fortune had smiled upon him, had been 
for her. He had not even gone to see the place, not even 
the town house ; he had not made any enquiries ; no, he 
had come straight to lay what he had and what he was 
at her feet. And yet she regretted the days of poverty. 
It would have been more to her if he had clung resolutely 
to her during those dark and hopeless times when it 
seemed as if the mist of poverty and obscurity would 
never be lifted from him. He had come back in fair 
weather, in a blaze of sunlight — the sunlight of pros- 
perity. 

She did not come down from her room until the bell 
rang for dinner, but she found when she reached the 
morning-room that the news had already spread through 
the house, and she was seized upon by her two younger 
sisters, who kissed her and made a great fuss over her, 
while Moresby stood looking on, the personification of 
proud possession. 

Then Willy came down and added his congratulations 
to the others. “ Dear little Joan,” he said, catching hold 

184 


TEN MINUTES’ CHAT 


of her so that she was almost lost in his embrace, I am 
so awfully glad that things have come right for you. 
What, you thought I didn’t know? Then, did you think 
I was blind? Pray, have no illusions on that score. As 
for you, Moresby, I’m absolutely delighted to have you 
for my brother-in-law. I believe one ought to give ex- 
pression to some rot about taking one’s sister away, but it 
is rot, and I’m not going to do it. I am delighted that 
Joan should be going to marry the man of her heart.” 

And then they went in to dinner, and everybody was 
very bright and gay, with the exception of little Joan her- 
self. Moresby sat on her right hand, and the pair were 
very much teased, and finally Mr. Delamere drank their 
health in a bottle of the best champagne of which his 
cellar could boast. 

And then all went back into the morning-room, and 
gradually one by one the family effaced itself, until at 
length Moresby and Joan were left alone together. 

“ Little girl,” said Moresby, as the door closed behind 
the last of the others to make an excuse for leaving, 
“ there’s one awfully jolly feature about being engaged — 
one isn’t expected to want the company of other people; 
in fact, one’s expected not to want it. We don’t have to 
get out of their way; on the contrary, they take care to 
clear out of ours. It’s absolutely delightful. You said 
just before dinner, little girl, that you hadn’t got used to 
it. I sympathize with you ; I haven’t got used to any of 
it, not a bit. But I suppose we shall in time.” 

Oh, I suppose so,” said Joan. “ It’s rather pointed, 
185 


LITTLE JOAN 

though, everybody clearing out of the way like this, 
isn’t it?” 

“ Delightfully pointed. Now, listen to me. To-morrow 
I want you to come down the town with me.” 

For why?” 

Because I want to buy our fetters. You must have 
rings. I shan’t feel that you really belong to me until I’ve 
got you safely handcuffed. And, by the way, I should like 
to have handcuffs, also.” 

What?” 

Yes, I should like you to give me an engagement ring. 
I don’t see why the women should have all the good 
things of this world, so I must have one, too. By the bye, 
little girl, what is yours to be?” 

“ I don’t mind,” said Joan. 

You don’t mind !” he repeated, blankly. 

Did I say that ? Oh, I was thinking about something 
else. I didn’t mean it. Of course I mind. I — I think I’d 
prefer diamonds; they go with everything, don’t they?” 

“ Yes, of course they do. But that needn’t stop you 
having some other ringb, just to go on with. I’ll come up 
for you about eleven o’clock. We’ll go and see what 
they’ve got at Drummonds.” 

Very well,” said Joan. And for yours, Ozzie?” 

Mine ? Oh, I couldn’t wear anything but a plain gold 
ring. I couldn’t wear stones.” 

“ Couldn’t you ? I wonder, then,” he said, hesitatingly, 
“ whether you would like to have a ring that I have? It’s 
a clodagh ring, — a real one.” 

’ i86 


CHAPTER XXIII 


Aggie’s Suspicions 



OR a whole week Lord Moresby remained at Blank- 


X hampton, not showing the smallest sign of desiring 
to leave the place. Twice his lawyers wrote, saying that 
it was imperative that he should attend to business mat- 
ters, and after the second letter, with many grumblings, 
he betook himself back to London. 

I shan’t be many days away. I have no idea of let- 
ting these fellows just do what they like with me,” he 
declared to Joan. And then, little girl, when I come 
back again, you’ll get everything fixed up, won’t you ?” 

Oh, there’s no hurry,” said Joan. ‘‘We haven’t — 
that is — er — I must have time to get my things.” 

“ My dear little girl, when we are wed you’ll have time 
and opportunity and money to get any quantity of things 
that happens to suit your fancy. Now, I do beg you’ll not 
keep me waiting a single day on the score of clothes. 
Anyway, you won’t dream of getting more than is neces- 
sary here in Blankhampton ?” 

“ Why not ? I’ve worn Blankhampton clothes all my 


life.” 


“ Yes, my darling ; but you are not going to live in 
Blankhampton now, and you must dress according to the 
place you are going to live in.” 


187 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Oh, I must get my things in Blankhampton. The 
people would be heart-broken. Remember, I have lived 
here all my life. I daresay it’s only a poor little provin- 
cial place to you, but to me it is my home.” 

“ It has been your home, but it isn’t going to be your 
home any more,” he told her. “ Still, get your things 
when and where you like, only get them quickly.” 

“ I must have a reasonable time,” said Joan. I can’t 
hurry out of my home as if I were running away. I must 
have a decent supply of things. I couldn’t be running 
to the dressmaker a week after we were married.” 

''No, no, darling; no, no, little girl. It’s only that I 
am so impatient to have you altogether, to make up for 
the time we have lost. One would almost think,” he said, 
wistfully, " that you were not keen on our marriage.” 

" Oh, I am, I am,” said Joan ; " yes, I am. In fact, I 
agree with you, Ozzie, the sooner it is all over the 
better.” 

So he went away, and once, as he pitifully wrote to her, 
once in the clutches of the lawyers, it seemed as if he 
would never be free again. And while he was fuming in 
London a string of horses arrived at the stables that Sir 
Robert Masters had occupied the previous winter, and a 
day later Robert Masters himself took up his quarters at 
the sign of the Golden Swan.” 

He, too, made his way to Riverside, and Joan almost 
jumped out of her skin, as the phrase goes, when he 
entered her presence. 

" When did you come ?” she asked. 

i88 


AGGIE’S SUSPICIONS 


“ I came last night, rather late. Dined in the train, got 
in at a little before midnight, tumbled into bed, and here 
I am.” 

Have you seen anyone?” said she. 

Well, Fve seen one or two people — nobody of any 
importance. Why ?” 

Oh, I didn’t know. It’s nothing. You would like a 
cup of tea, wouldn’t you. Sir Robert ?” 

Well, I would like a cup of tea when it’s going, thank 
you. But, Miss Joan, what’s the matter?” 

Matter?” said Joan, faintly. 

Yes. What’s happened to you? You look knocked 
all of a heap. You — has anything untoward taken 
place ?” 

'' Untoward ?” echoed Joan. '‘Oh, no.” 

“ Well, something. You are different. I don’t know 
what it is.” Then he caught sight of the rings blazing 
upon her left hand. “ You — something has happened to 
you,” he said, slowly. “ Is it true ?” 

“ Yes,” said Joan ; “ it is quite true.” 

“ It’s the other man ? The fellow in India ?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ And you are — you are engaged to be married ?” 

“ I am engaged to be married,” said Joan. 

“ I see.” For a moment he was almost too much 
stunned to speak. 

“ I — I — told you,” said Joan. 

“Yes, I know you did; but you know. Miss Joan, a 
man never believes anything he doesn’t want to believe 

189 


LITTLE JOAN 


until the knowledge is forced upon him. I didn’t want 
to believe that there was somebody else. I — I — ^beg your 
pardon. I haven’t said a word to congratulate you. I 
hope you will be very, very happy. You must forget that 
I ever had any other idea, and we must be the best of 
friends, you and I — always.” 

Joan stretched out her hand to him, but she turned 
her head away, so that he could not see her face. 

“ You know,” he went on, “ I have always thought 
men such fools when they quarrel with women who don’t 
care to marry them. There’s no necessity for anything 
of the kind, and you can’t wonder that some other man 
has seen and valued what you have seen and valued 
higher than all the rest of the world.” 

I don’t think,” said Joan, still keeping her head turned 
away, '' I don’t think that friendship is possible under 
some circumstances.” 

“ You mean that you couldn’t be a friend of mine ? 
Well, I suppose it is a little impossible. And yet, where 
one really values another, it seems to me so natural to 
say, ' Half a loaf is better than no bread.’ But in our 
case it must be as you wish, not as I desire.” 

“As I wish,” repeated Joan. Then she suddenly 
turned round and put out both her hands to him. “ Yes, 
yes,” she said, “you and I will be friends. There’s no 
reason why we shouldn’t. You know, I didn’t expect to 
see you back just yet. I knew you were coming to hunt, 
but I didn’t think you would come for a week or two 
longer. And all this other business has been so sudden. 

190 


AGGIE’S SUSPICIONS 


I didn’t expect to be engaged. I had no idea that Lord 
Moresby had a chance of coming in for the title.” 

‘^Moresby? You mean Oswald Mainwaring?” 

Yes.” 

“ You are engaged to Oswald Mainwaring?” 

I am.” 

You astound me. I had no idea that you even knew 
him.” 

“ You evidently do,” said Joan. 

Yes, I have known Mainwaring for a long time. I 
never thought of him in connection with you. Oh, no, 
I mean nothing. Don’t think that. I’m surprised, that’s 
all. Is he in Blankhampton ?” 

He has been. He’s gone to town, and his lawyers 
have him firmly in their clutches, so he writes me.” 

I see.” Then Robert Masters looked round. '' Miss 
Joan,” he said, aren’t you going to ask me to sit down ? 
Won’t you sit down yourself, and let me tell you all that 
has happened to me since we last met.” 

Oh, yes,” said Joan ; '' of course, of course. I’m very 
stupid. I seem to have taken leave of my wits in these 
last days.” 

Robert Masters looked at her sharply. “ Yes, yes, it’s 
very natural,” he said. “ And your people — your father — 
I hope he is all right ?” 

Oh, yes.” 

I suppose he’s not very cheerful at the prospect of 
losing you?” 

'' No, I am afraid not,” said Joan. “ Of course, he 

jpi 


LITTLE JOAN 


likes Lord Moresby very much, but it will be rather a 
wrench for him. Norah, of course, will have to come 
home now.” 

“ By the bye, is there anything going on there? You 
fancied there was.” 

That we have yet to learn,” said Joan. “ She has 
been awfully close about it; but unless something serious 
is going on, of course she must come back, because Agnes 
has no genius for house management, and my father can’t 
be left to the mercy of utter incompetency.” 

So she talked on, and he talked on, the two making 
conversation until William arrived with the tea-tray. 
And then other people came, including the younger girls 
and several of their boys, and one or two young ladies 
from the town. 

Agnes edged her way to Joan’s side when Sir Robert 
went across the room with a teacup. ‘‘ I say, Joan, does 
he know?” she murmured. 

“ Know what ?” 

About Ozzie ?” 

Oh, yes.” 

Ah, poor chap !” 

Don’t!” said Joan, in a sharp whisper. 

Well, of course,” whispered the younger sister in 
reply, “ you couldn’t marry both of them — at once,” she 
added as an after-thought. 

“ How can you be so horrid 1” said Joan, fiercely. 

Ah, my dear,” retorted Agnes, “ you are like the pic- 
ture in Punch, where the young Scot’s wife upbraided 


192 


AGGIE’S SUSPICIONS 


the butcher for killing the ‘ wee bonny bit caugh.’ ‘ Why, 
wuman,’ said he, ^ ye wudna eat em leeving !’ ” 

She laughed at her own little joke, and went off with 
a plate of cake to a group on the other side of the 
room. 

Joan was still frowning when Robert Masters found his 
way back to his own seat. 

'' What’s the matter. Miss Joan?” he asked. 

Oh, nothing.” 

'' Really nothing ?” 

Really nothing that I need take any notice of. Agnes 
is too stupid sometimes. I suppose sisters always are.” 

He said no more then, but went on talking as if no 
one else was by, and presently he betook himself quietly 
away, and left Joan free to attend to the many friends 
who had come for the special purpose of congratulating 
her on her engagement. 

“ I think, Agnes,” said one young married woman, as 
she was passing through the hall on her way out of the 
house, I think Joan looks dreadfully ill.” 

Yes, I think so, too. I quite agree with you.” 

Is she happy in this engagement, do you think ?” 

I don’t know. She hasn’t said anything.” 

Of course, Mr. Mainwaring practically lived here,” 
remarked the lady, “ and we all expected that they would 
be engaged then.” 

'' They couldn’t,” said Agnes. '' He was over head and 
ears in debt, and he hadn’t twopence. He wouldn’t ask 
my father for her then, — said he hadn’t the impudence, — 


13 


193 


LITTLE JOAN 


but as soon as fortune smiled upon him he came back and 
laid all that he had at her feet.” 

“ It is very pretty and very romantic,” said Mrs. Silver- 
thorn ; “ but I wish Joan looked a little happier over it.” 

“ Oh, Joan’s all right. Don’t worry about her. A little 
bit knocked over. She didn’t expect him to come back 
again. It was all so sudden. Don’t worry about her. 
She’ll be all right.” 

But, although she passed off the enquiry with such a 
high hand, Agnes Delamere kept her eye very sharply on 
her sister. She noticed that she seemed to get more 
fagged and strained looking every moment, until at last 
she slipped out of the room, and Agnes knew that she had 
taken refuge in her own chamber. 

A quarter of an hour later, when the last of the visitors 
had disappeared, Agnes, too, went upstairs. She listened 
a moment outside Joan’s door. 

Yes, as she had expected, Joan was crying bitterly. 

There’s something all wrong here,” said Agnes to 
herself. Now, I wonder what it is.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


Confirmation 


I hour or so later, when Joan came down to dinner, 



Jr\. Agnes scanned her sharply, scanned her with the 
keen young eyes of a wholly sympathetic but untried na- 
ture. There had never been a love-passage in Agnes Dela- 
mere’s history. She was a flirt — an arrant flirt. She had 
a dozen followers whom she called her “ boys,” and she 
meted out justice to them with a Arm and wholesome 
hand. She had never cried as she had heard Joan crying 
an hour ago; not one of all her string of boys had ever 
had power to bring so much as a single tear to dim the 
radiance of Agnes Delamere’s bright eyes. 

“ I don’t believe in making yourself a slave to a boy,” 
she remarked one day in a burst of confidence to her 
greatest friend. “ Men are curious creatures, my dear. 
The more you expect of them, the more they are ready to 
do for you.” 

How do you mean ?” asked the friend. 

Well, I mean this way If they think you are watch- 
ing for them, and that you’ll cry your eyes sore if they 
don’t come — well, they’ll try it on. If they think if they 
don’t come some other fellow will, and perhaps you’ll like 
the other fellow better, they’ll come. That’s why I always 
have so many boys going at a time. Take everything; 
give nothing. For a hundred words of abject adoration 


LITTLE JOAN 


give one little meagre one of half-encouragement. Keep 
them waiting; tramp them under your feet like the dust 
of the earth ; treat them like dogs, and you are all right, 
and so are they, for they are in their right places. Why, 
I know a girl — I won’t tell you her name, because you 
know her, too — who was engaged to a man, and she 
promised to meet him at Bonner’s for tea. She waited, if 
you please, till six o’clock, and he never turned up, and 
she never had any tea — at least, she wouldn’t have had 
if I hadn’t happened to come in. And she looked abject. 
I could have shaken her,” said Agnes, putting her hand- 
some head in the air with a whole-hearted vigour which 
made her more attractive than ever, I could have shaken 
her and then slapped her hard. I told her so.” 

“ What did she say ?” 

She said I didn’t understand, and that I had never 
been in love in my life. Said I ' If a man asked me to 
meet him here for tea, I would have my tea at the time 
fixed, whether he came to time or not.’ ” 

But your young man will be in time,” said her friend. 

“ Well, it will be bad for him if he isn’t,” retorted 
Agnes. 

Now, in this spirit, and with any amount of sympathy, 
and a certain measure of puzzled curiosity as to Joan’s 
inmost private affairs, Agnes regarded her elder sister 
with keen, scrutinizing eyes when they met in the dining- 
room on the evening of the day on which Sir Robert 
Masters first learned that she was engaged to Lord 
Moresby. 


196 


CONFIRMATION 


They were alone, the two girls, as it happened, because 
Mr. Delamere and Willy were both dining somewhere in 
the town. William waited upon them with an indulgent 
air, and it was not until he had left the room that Agnes 
ventured to put a direct question to Joan. 

Don’t you feel well to-night, Joan?” she asked. 

Joan looked up. “ No, I don’t think I do.” 

“ Headache?” 

“ Ye-s,” she said, half hesitatingly, “ my head does 
ache a little. “ I don’t feel very bright.” 

Do you think you are going to have the flue, dear ?” 

No, I don’t think so.” Joan was intensely interested 
in the beautiful rings which adorned her left hand. 

“ I should have a glass of port if I were you,” said 
Agnes. 

“ Oh, would you ? I don’t mind.” 

Agnes took up the decanter, which was opposite to her, 
and filled Joan’s glass. There’s nothing like a glass of 
port when you feel just as you are feeling now. I should 
go to bed early. I thought you looked seedy all day.” 

“ Oh, no ; I was all right this morning.” 

“ We’ll go to bed early. Don’t write any letters.” 

“ I must write a letter to-night. I shan’t catch the 
Australian mail if I don’t.” 

Then I shouldn’t write,” said Agnes, decidedly. 

I must. I haven’t told Norah my news yet.” 

“You haven’t written to Norah? Well, I have — I’ve 
told her. I hope you don’t mind.” 

“ Oh, no. I don’t know why I didn’t tell her last 
197 


LITTLE JOAN 


week. I don’t know why I missed writing, but I did; 
and I feel that Norah ought to make arrangements for 
coming home.” 

Norah won’t come home.” 

You think not?” 

“No, I think not. Norah has got fish of her own to 
fry out there.” 

“If Norah doesn’t come home, of course I can’t be 
married just yet.” 

“Why not, dear? I’ve nothing to do but look after 
Dad. I’m quite as sedate and quite as full of sound 
common-sense as you are ; and, after all, with Cook, who 
has been here for ever, there is not so much management 
to do.” 

“ I suppose not. One gets to feel, somehow, that the 
one who is a couple of years younger than one’s self has 
got a couple of hundred years less sense. It’s very un- 
just. I think you have much more sense than I have, 
really.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know about that. But you mustn’t put 
off your wedding, if you really want to be married, be- 
cause you think I can’t look after Daddy.” 

“ If I want. What do you mean by that?” Joan looked 
up almost sharply. 

“ I don’t mean anything. I suppose you do want to be 
married, since you have engaged yourself to Ozzie Main- 
waring ?” 

“ Of course I want to be married. Why shouldn’t I ?” 

“ Well, dear, you don’t seem too keen on it.” 

198 


CONFIRMATION 


I hate women who are too keen on being married/* 
said Joan, rather pettishly. “ I haven’t got used to the 
idea yet.” 

You must be pretty well used to Ozzie Mainwaring 
by this time.” 

“ Yes ; but I haven’t got used to his being anything 
but Ozzie Mainwaring. I don’t want to be rushed into 
it. I — I think being engaged is the best part of the 
time.” 

“ Oh, that’s nonsense. If you really like a man, you 
can’t marry him too soon. Besides, it is so rough on the 
man to be kept dangling about.” 

Is it ? It’s always rough on the man when you can’t 
do just what he wants. After all. I’ve waited for Ozzie, 
and now, if need be, Ozzie must wait for me. I — I feel 
just so. I couldn’t be rushed into it. I must have time 
to breathe. I must get used to it. It’s — it’s like tear- 
ing one’s life up by the roots.” 

'' If I were you,” said Agnes, in a dry, sensible tone, 

I should drink that port down and I should go to bed. 
You’re not well, you’re not looking at all well, and you 
don’t seem well. If I were you I should go to bed and 
get a long night’s rest. By the bye, how are you sleep- 
ing?” 

Badly.’* 

I thought as much. Well, then, look here, 1*11 mix 
you up some sulphonal. It’s safe, it will do you no harm, 
and you’ll get a solid night’s sleep, and in the morning 
you’ll look at everything and think of everything in a 

199 


LITTLE JOAN 


totally different spirit. As you are to-night, you are 
nerve-broken, you are unhinged. It isn’t like you, 
dear.” 

“ No, dear, nothing is like me. I never felt so unlike 
myself in my life. And yet, I don’t remember — when 
Maudie was married — I don’t remember that she was like 
this ; I don’t remember that she ever had any qualms, 
that she ever wanted to wait, that she wanted to get used 
to anything.” 

“ She didn’t,” put in Agnes. “ But then she was so 
much in love with Billy Blake that she’d have married 
him the next day if it hadn’t been for conventionalities — 
I mean the next day after they were engaged.” 

'' Yes, I suppose so.” 

“ I wouldn’t talk about it to-night, Joan,” Agnes went 
on. Put that glass of port out of sight and come off 
to bed. I have a note to write, — oh, only to one of the 
boys, — and then I’ll come up and see you take your dose 
and get comfortably tucked into bed.” 

Without a word Joan swallowed down the glass of 
good old port which stood before her, and then, with a 
half-nervous laugh, she said that Aggie’s advice was good 
and that she would go to bed. 

“ I’ll come up in two minutes,” said Agnes. “ I just 
want to write a note.” 

She saw her sister go up the wide stairs, and then 
turned into the morning-room. There she sat down at 
the smart little writing desk and wrote this letter : 


200 


CONFIRMATION 


'' I particularly want to see you and to have a talk to 
you. It is most important. If you are free to-morrow 
morning, you will find me in the Winter Garden, just 
near Sir Joseph’s Statue, at eleven o’clock. 

“ Yours ever, 

“Agnes Delamere.” 

She folded the sheet of paper and put it in the enve- 
lope. Then she addressed it to “ Sir Robert Masters, 
Golden Swan, St. Thomas’s Street, Blankhampton.” 

“ I don’t know that I am right,” her thoughts ran, as 
she took a stamp from the little box where those articles 
were kept and carefully affixed it to the corner of the 
envelope, “ I don’t know, of course, whether I am right 
or wrong, but I’ve got no squeamishness in my nature. 
I’m not going to let dear little Joan put her head into a 
noose without being quite certain that it will swing her 
straight into Paradise. If I am wrong, no harm will be 
done ; if I am right, I shall be glad that I took the bold 
plunge to the last hour of my life.” 

She rang the bell, and when William came in reply to 
the summons, she told him to send the letter to the post 
at once. 

“That’s all, Miss Agnes?” 

“ That’s all, thank you, William. I don’t think Miss 
Joan’s very well to-night. I’m going to get her to bed 
at once.” 

“ You wouldn’t like me to run round for Doctor Parkin- 
son, Miss Agnes?” said William, looking anxiously at 


201 


LITTLE JOAN 


her. '' I’ve thought Miss Joan was looking very out of 
sorts, not like herself, for the last day or two.” 

“ I’ve thought so, too, William,” said Agnes. “ We 
can’t afford to let anything go wrong with Miss Joan, 
can we?” 

Not with Miss Joan,” said William. 

Yes, I know she’s your favourite, William,” said 
Agnes. “ But I don’t think we’ll have the doctor to-night. 
We’ll see how she is in the morning. She will be vexed 
if we send for him at this hour, making a mountain out 
of a molehill and a fuss about nothing ; but if you would 
send a cup of coffee and some hot milk up to my room. 
I’ll give her a little sleeping-draught, and to-morrow we 
shall know better what we are doing.” 

She went on up the stairs, whither Joan had just pre- 
ceded her, with a comfortable feeling at her heart that 
she had taken the matter in hand. “ I know what I 
think,” she said to herself, as she reached the top stair. 
“ I may be wrong, but I’ll eat my head if I am. Dear 
mother always said the same thing — half the misery in 
the world comes from not grasping your nettle. Now, if 
that is Joan’s particular nettle, and she’s afraid to grasp it, 
I have no fear, and I’m going to grasp it for her with a 
hand of iron.” 


202 


CHAPTER XXV 


A Bold Resolve 

HEN Agnes Delamere arrived at the place of 



tryst the following morning, she found Sir Rob- 


ert Masters there before her. 

It’s most awfully good of you to have written to me,” 
he said. 

Well, I hope so. I’m not sure about it,” said Agnes, 
rather nervously. I — I — had to take my courage in 
both hands, I can assure you, before I did it.” 

“ But why ? Surely, Miss Agnes, you know me well 
enough to be able to say anything you like to me?” 

“Well, do I? I am not so sure of that. Look here, 
where can we talk? I can’t talk to you comfortably 
standing here.” 

“ Oh, no, no. Besides, it’s chilly. There’s a little kiosk 
round here, or summer-house. How would that do?” 

They turned and walked towards the summer-house 
in silence together. “ Now, Miss Agnes,” said Robert 
Masters, when the girl had seated herself. 

“ You” — she looked at him with a certain hesitancy — 
“ you’ll keep counsel with me ?” 

“ Why, of course.” 

“ You’ll never let on to a soul that I wrote to you or 
came here to meet you ?” 


203 


LITTLE JOAN 

“ Of course not. What do you take me for he 
asked. 

“ Well, I — I am very bold to have come. I may be en- 
tirely mistaken, and if I am you must forgive me, and 
forget that I ever spoke to you on the subject.” 

Certainly. But won’t you relieve my mind ? Fm get- 
ting most dreadfully anxious.” 

'' Well, you are a great friend of Joan’s, aren’t you?” 

I hope I am.” 

She hesitated again. Then she turned, looked at him 
for an instant, and immediately averted her eyes. “ Sir 
Robert,” she said, Joan never tells us anything of her 
private business — that’s not her nature. I haven’t the 
least idea whether she’s more to you than any other girl, 
or whether it’s only been my fancy, but I used to think, 
before Ozzie Mainwaring came back again, that you had 
a special interest in my sister.” 

“ And so I had,” he said, quietly. 

Oh, you had? And — er — did you ever ask Joan to 
marry you?” 

‘‘ I did.” 

And — er — did she refuse you ?” 

“ Well, she did in effect.” 

“ Did you gather that there was anyone else ?” 

Yes. She told me, quite frankly, that there was 
somebody else.” 

“ Did you ever think Joan cared for you?” 

I — I imagined she was not indifferent to me. But 
then, when one wants something very much, I think it 


204 


A BOLD RESOLVE 


is only natural to flatter one’s self that one is likely to 
get it. I was mistaken in your sister, as events have 
proved.” 

“ How did you think Joan looking?” asked Agnes, ab- 
ruptly. She no longer averted her eyes, but was scanning 
him closely and eagerly. 

“ I thought she was looking dreadfully ill,” said Robert 
Masters, promptly. 

Yes, and you were quite right. She is looking dread- 
fully ill ; and what is a good deal more to the point. Sir 
Robert, she is dreadfully miserable. Now, look here. 
I don’t know a word from Joan, neither first nor last. I’m 
going right outside of my legitimate province in coming 
to you at all ; but I never did believe in letting things go 
from bad to worse just for the sake of speaking. My 
sister isn’t happy.” 

Oh, nonsense !” 

No, she’s not happy in her engagement to Ozzie 
Mainwaring. She used to like him. When he was quar- 
tered here, they were the greatest of great chums. He 
was here when dear mother died, and he was awfully nice 
at that time. And then he went away, and Joan seemed 
like half a girl. And then you came. Sir Robert, and I 
began to hope and to think that she was forgetting all 
about Ozzie Mainwaring. They didn’t correspond, mind. 
She never had a letter from him till one night at Rock- 
borough. You remember, when you went over from 
Rockborough to Blankhampton one day for a few hours, 
and you brought back a packet of letters with you that 
205 


LITTLE JOAN 


Willie had given you for father? It was with those let- 
ters, and father gave it to her/’ 

I remember it,” said he, his face changing. 

“Do you remember what Joan was like that night? 
Do you remember what she was like the next day? Just 
think. Throw your mind back. / haven’t forgotten. Sir 
Robert. What do you remember?” 

“ Miss Agnes,” said he, hoarsely, “ whatever comes of 
this, I shall never forget how awfully good of you it was 
to come frankly and tell me what you believe is the truth. 
Your sister is the one woman in the world for me. Noth- 
ing will ever change me, or make me feel any differently 
towards her. You may be right, and I don’t say that 
you are not, but, at the same time, I am most awkwardly 
placed. I’m bound to accept her information, as I am her 
decision. She says she’s engaged to Ozzie Mainwaring, 
and in my position I can hardly tell her that I believe she’s 
engaged to him but would prefer to marry me. You see 
how I am placed.” 

“ Do you want to marry Joan?” said Agnes. 

“ Of course I want to marry Joan. Can you doubt it?” 

“ Do you think,” said Agnes, “ that if Joan were en- 
gaged to you she would make any and every excuse for 
putting off her marriage?” 

“ I hope not.” His face took on a look so tender that 
the heart of Agnes was hardened against Moresby, and 
she determined in that brief instant to lose no chance of 
furthering the wishes of the one man and thwarting the 
desires of the other. 


206 


A BOLD RESOLVE 


'' Miss Agnes/' said Robert Masters, “ do you realize 
what your words imply?” 

I don't quite understand you,'' said Agnes. 

“ You imply that your sister is engaged to marry a 
man for whom she cares nothing, — or, rather, for whom 
she cares less than she does for — well, it sounds very 
conceited — but less than she does for me.'' 

“ I believe that is so,'' said Agnes, steadily. 

“ But what makes you think so ? Has she said any- 
thing?” 

Not a word. It isn't Joan's way to say anything. 
She isn't like the rest of us, who blab out everything 
that comes into our heads almost before it has got there. 
She's a self-contained girl, and keeps her own counsel. 
She has never said a word; but if I tell you the truth 
you'll never betray me ?” 

Never.” 

“ Well, as soon as people had gone last night, she bolted 
upstairs into her bedroom. She had a sort of look like a 
condemned prisoner on her, and when I went up, just 
before dinner, she was crying.” 

She was crying ?” 

'' Crying fit to break her heart. You could hear her 
through the door. Why should she cry? Why should 
she look as she does ? This morning I could have sworn, 
if I hadn't myself given her sulphonal last night— and 
a good dose at that— that she had never closed her eyes. 
When my eldest sister was married— Mrs. Billy Blake, 
who, you know, used to be in the Black Horse — she was 

207 


LITTLE JOAN 


as happy as a bird, and as merry as the day was long. 
Joan hasn’t a sad disposition ; she’s a cheerful, contented, 
equable-minded girl. She’s let herself in. She’s bound 
by some sense of honour, and not by her inclinations. 
It’s wicked to marry from a sense of honour. He ought 
not to keep her to it.” 

But if he doesn’t know ?” said Robert Masters. 

“ Well, if he doesn’t know, of course he’s not to blame. 
The question is, does he know, or doesn’t he?” 

No, no. No man would keep a girl to her bargain 
under those circumstances. And you say she was 
crying ?” 

Sobbing fit to break her heart,” said Agnes. 

For a moment Robert Masters did not speak. Then 
he got up and swung out of the little arbour, going witE 
quick, resolute steps to the end of the gravelled path- 
way which led into one of the main ways of the Winter 
Garden. Agnes sat there watching him like one fasci- 
nated. He’s the man for Joan,” her thoughts ran. They 
took on a curious rhythmical beat that seemed to keep 
time with his footsteps. 

At last he came back again. '' Miss Agnes,” he said, 
I don’t think we can decide anything more this morn- 
ing. You have given me the straight tip — God knows 
I am thankful and grateful to you; whatever comes of 
it, I shall be thankful and grateful as long as I live. I’ll 
keep it well in my mind. I think old Booties must have 
been before your day, but I knew him well. He had a 
saying that served him in season and out of season, and 
208 


A BOLD RESOLVE 


nine times out of ten it turned up trumps. He used to 
say : ' Don’t worry, old chap. It will all dry straight.’ 

I don’t think that you need worry any more, Miss Agnes, 
about your sister. You have given me the straight tip, 
and I shall keep my eyes open, — of that you can rest 
assured. And thank you, and thank you a thousand 
times !” 

The girl parted from him then, going away with a 
feeling as if she had been betrayed into something indis- 
creet. She sped away down St. Thomas’s Street, made 
one or two small purchases, saw one or two friends, and 
so went on home, wondering whether she had done right. 
Yet, when she came to think it over, she knew that in 
any case he could have done nothing other than he had 
done. The conventionalities of decent society had cer- 
tainly placed him in what he himself described as an 
extremely awkward and delicate situation. A man now- 
adays cannot ride a tilt for the favour of a fair lady. No. 
He has to sit down, and behave in an ordinary manner, as 
if nothing out of the common had happened, merely 
taking his chance, as it were, of relief for any situation 
that may have become strained. Then she consoled 
herself with the idea that what a man wants badly he will 
leave no stone unturned to achieve. That Robert Masters 
did badly want to have Joan for his wife Agnes had not 
the smallest doubt. 

“ I can leave it to him,” she said to herself. “ I have 
done my best. If nothing comes of it, well, it can’t be 
helped ; but I shall have done my best.” 

209 


14 


LITTLE JOAN 


Then she went into the dining-room, where she found 
Joan just sitting down to lunch. 

“ My dear, how late you are !’’ said Joan. “ I fancied 
you were lunching in the town somewhere.” 

No, darling, I have been out, but that’s all. What 
have you been doing? Have you a headache?” 

'' No, I don’t think I have a headache,” said Joan ; and 
Agnes, looking at her keenly, said within her own heart 
that, if she were to describe the cause of Joan’s sorry 
looks, she wouldn’t ascribe them to the head, but to the 
heart. 

“ See anybody you knew when you were out?” Joan 
asked, presently. 

Oh, one or two people. I saw Sir Robert.” 

Oh, did you speak to him ?” 

“ Yes. I saw Flora O’Donnell, too.” 

“ With Sir Robert?” 

No, no. I don’t think she knows him. No, she was 
walking by her lonesome in St. Thomas’s Street. For 
the matter of that. Sir Robert was walking by his lone- 
some, too.” 

I thought he would have been hunting,” said Joan, 
with a fine air of indifference. 

He wasn’t. How ill he is looking !” 

“ 111 ! Do you think so ?” 

“ Yes, I do.” 

“ Oh, it seems rather impossible — a man to be ill !” 

“ Not at all,” said Agnes, coolly. Poor creatures, 
why shouldn’t they be ill as well as us?” 


210 


A BOLD RESOLVE 


'' No reason at all,’’ said Joan, quietly ; “ no reason. 
But one doesn’t think of a hunting man, somehow, as 
likely to be ill, that’s all. Perhaps he has taken cold.” 

'' I didn’t ask him,” said Agnes. “ By the way, Joan, 
are you going to Mrs. Mountjoy’s this afternoon?” 

I promised I would,” said Joan, half-hesitatingly. 

“ So did I,” chimed in Violet. 

I don’t think that three of us need go. It’s such a 
crew out of one house, isn’t it? I might be let off.” 

'' But didn’t Mrs. Mount] oy make a particular point of 
your coming?” Joan asked. 

'' Well, she did, rather.” 

“ I’d go, then. She’s a dear thing. She’s always been 
awfully kind to us, and if she likes to think that three 
of us are not too many, I don’t see that we need think 
for her.” 


2II 


CHAPTER XXVI 


The Difficulty of Life 

M rs. MOUNTJOY was more or less of a character, 
and was one of the leading lights of Blankhamp- 
ton society. She lived in a beautiful, roomy, old house, 
which was tucked away under the shadow of the old Ca- 
thedral. New-comers found a good deal of difficulty in 
locating the exact whereabouts of Parish Court, for it was 
through an archway in a very insignificant street that the 
house was approached. Once there, however, everything 
that could gladden the heart of man or woman in the shape 
of a house was to be found — a garden centuries old, with 
cool, green, mossy lawns, quaint terraces, even a few frag- 
ments of an aged ruin; long, low, spacious rooms with 
many windows, wide old doors of solid mahogany that 
swung back with quite an eighteenth-century air ; quaint 
recesses, long galleries, ingle nooks, all sorts and condi- 
tions of things dear to the heart of the modern woman. 
And Mrs. Mount joy, who was amply plenished with the 
world’s goods, had furnished her house up to its tradi- 
tions and loved it as the apple of her eye. 

On this particular day the garden was, of course, out 
of court; but the old house was bright with many lights 
and the glow of blazing fires, decorated with many palms 
and flowers, and a gay throng of people had spread them- 


212 


THE DIFFICULTY OF LIFE 


selves over it with an impartiality which betokened that 
they were enjoying themselves. 

When the three Delamere girls were announced, Mrs. 
Mount] oy was standing in the inner hall receiving her 
guests. Ah, my dears,” she said, it’s pleasant to see 
your sweet faces. Come in. You’ll find lots of people 
you know, and Mr. Pagan is just going to do one of his 
sketches.” 

With smiles the girls passed on, the two younger ones 
going straight forward into the large drawing-room; 
Joan, however, being stopped, just before she reached 
the doorway, by a good-natured gossip of the town. 

“ Ah, Joan,” she said, I haven’t seen you for a long 
time. How is the world using you?” 

Very well, thank you, Mrs. Danvers.” 

Is that so, now ? I hear that you are going to be 
married.” 

'' I am engaged to be married,” said Joan, fencing the 
direct question instinctively. 

“ Well, now, I heard so. And I always thought it to 
be somebody else right until this morning.” 

“ Really ? And did you hear this morning that I was 
engaged ?” 

Oh, I heard that a week since. I was coming up every 
day this week — I was coming up just to talk it over and 
see what the latest news was.” 

That is so kind of you,” said Joan, politely. 

Oh, yes, very kind of me. But I am kind.” 

“ Of course you are,” said Joan, laughing a little. 


213 


LITTLE JOAN 


All the same,” Mrs. Danvers went on, “ I thought it 
would be to somebody else; I did, indeed. But it only 
shows how one may be mistaken. However, it’s plain 
to be seen that you will have another wedding in your 
family before long.” 

Indeed ! And who’s is that ?” Joan asked. Her tone 
of surprise was a genuine one. 

Why, Agnes, of course.” 

Agnes ? Oh, I didn’t know Agnes was favouring 
anybody in particular just now.” 

“ Oh, my dear, you keep your eyes shut then. I saw 
’em this morning. But, there, it isn’t like me to tell tales 
out of school, is it?” 

Joan laughed, for, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Danvers 
was well known in Blankhampton as being a great hand 
at tale-telling of all sorts and kinds. The next moment 
Mrs. Danvers uttered an exclamation almost of triumph. 

“ Just look into that room,” she said, touching Joan on 
the shoulder, ‘‘ and tell me there won’t be a wedding be- 
fore long !” 

With a smiling face Joan turned and looked into the 
drawing-room, and she saw Sir Robert Masters standing 
talking to her sister Agnes, and Agnes looking, I may 
as well admit it, the very picture of embarrassment. 

Oh, the fierce pang that shot through the girl’s heart! 
Then as fiercely she reminded herself that she had now 
no concern with anything that Sir Robert Masters might 
chose to do. If he chose to marry Agnes, and Agnes 
chose to marry him, well, she was engaged to Lord 

214 


THE DIFFICULTY OF LIFE 


Moresby; it was, therefore, absolutely no concern of 
hers. 

It is only in story-books that a woman is able to give 
vent to her feelings when the great tragedies of life 
happen to her. Joan was perfectly conscious that Mrs. 
Danvers was watching her every look, every expression 
of her face, so she pulled herself together with an iron 
hand, turning back to her seat with an admirable assump- 
tion of carelessness and ease. 

“ I have never noticed anything between Agnes and 
Sir Robert,” she said, with an air of great simplicity; 
‘‘ but they always do say that onlookers see most of the 
game. Certainly nothing has been settled ; so please don’t 
speak of it until you hear something definite from us.” 

Of course not, my dear child. I shouldn’t think of 
it,” said Mrs. Danvers, with many nods and becks. But 
I always thought it was you, Joan, and I believe it would 
have been if Oswald Mainwaring hadn’t turned up 
again.” 

“ Oh, nonsense ! You do imagine things, Mrs. Dan- 
vers. You really and honestly do imagine things,” said 
Joan, with admirable self-control. “And, anyway,” she 
added, “ I couldn’t marry two of them, could I ?” 

“ Not at once,” said Mrs. Danvers. 

“ Oh, how horrid of you !” cried Joan. “ I shall go 
into the dining-room and see if I can’t wash out that 
dreadful speech in tea.” 

She turned and went swiftly through the hall and 
down a corridor to the right, out of which led the dining- 


215 


LITTLE JOAN 


room. She wanted to forget the look on the faces of both 
her sister and Robert Masters. Evidently she had been 
mistaken all along. Oh, no, that was impossible ! Robert 
Masters had asked her to marry him. It was horrible to 
think that he meant to marry her sister; it was horrible 
to think a man could transfer his affections so easily, or, 
if he had not transferred his affections, that her sister 
should be put off with half a man’s heart. It was more 
horrible because, in that moment of agitation, she put it 
to herself that of all men in the wide world, Robert Mas- 
ters was the only one who had any attraction for her. 
And she was wearing Moresby’s diamonds upon her be- 
trothal finger, she was carrying the imprint of Moresby’s 
kisses upon her lips. Life was a dread; the future a 
horror ; the past paradise. 

She choked down a cup of tea, much too hot, and 
turned away from the table. At the door she met her 
younger sister coming gayly in with one of her favourite 
cavaliers. 

“ Violet,” she said, “ I am going home.” 

“ Oh, Joan !” cried the girl, in a tone of the deepest 
dismay. 

No, darling, you misunderstand me. I don’t want you 
to go also. I feel a little queer in my head. No, no, you 
needn’t worry about it. I’ll go quietly home in a cab 
and lie down for an hour. You can tell Aggie when you 
see her.” 

“ But one of us will go with you. I’ll go,” cried 
Violet. 


216 


THE DIFFICULTY OF LIFE 


No, no, dearest, please don’t. You would only make 
me wretched, and I am all right. It’s only that I feel a 
little queer in my head, a little swimmy. You under- 
stand.” She put up her hand and touched her forehead, 
as if to show Violet exactly where her malady was 
located. As a matter of fact, she touched the wrong 
place. She should have laid her hand upon her throat, 
where her heart was beating quite out of its right place. 

“ Let me give you something,” said Violet. A little 
brandy ” 

Yes, Miss Delamere, do let me give you a tiny brandy- 
soda,” said the lad at Violet’s elbow, eagerly. 

'' No, I couldn’t touch it,” said Joan. I’d rather go 
home.” 

Then a voice behind her caused her to jump, as the 
phrase goes, almost out of her skin. “ Is anything the 
matter ?” 

“ Joan’s not feeling well. Sir Robert,” said Violet. 

She says her head is most queer. She wants to go 
home, and she won’t have anything.” 

Nonsense, Miss Joan ! You’ll come and have a 
brandy-and-soda with me. It will do you good. Now, 
let’s have no demur, no words about it. You are just 
going to leave her to me. Miss Violet. I understand your 
sister much better than you do.” 

He took Joan authoritatively by the elbow, and piloted 
her through the crowd into a little room off the dining- 
room, where the intimates of the house knew divers 
drinks were to be found. He made her sit down on the 

217 


LITTLE JOAN 


luxurious window-seat, put a cushion behind her back, 
swiftly mixed a fairly strong brandy-and-soda, and stood 
over her while she drank it. 

‘‘ Now, no nonsense. Miss Joan. Down your throat 
this is going. Excuse my taking this tone, but you’ve got 
a face like chalk, and you’re shaking all over. There 
now; just stay quiet, and don’t talk, don’t worry, and in 
five minutes you’ll feel a different person. I never believe 
in letting this sort of thing go curing itself. It’s most 
dangerous.” 

He sat down on the window-seat beside her and coaxed 
her to drink the rest of the brandy-and-soda. And Joan 
sat back, feeling not quite sure whether she was going 
to laugh or to cry; to swoon away, as she had done that 
day when Oswald Mainwaring came back again; or 
whether she should turn the whole thing into an elaborate 
joke. 

After a silence of some five minutes or so, when the 
colour was beginning to come back to her lips again, she 
looked at him and asked him a question. “ Where is 
Agnes ?” she said. 

“ Miss Agnes? Oh, I spoke to her just now,” said he, 
looking straight into her eyes. “ I passed the time of 
day, don’t you know, and then I delivered her into the 
hands of several youngsters from the barracks. She’s 
all right. Don’t you worry about her.” 

“ I wasn’t worrying,” said Joan. I only asked, that 
was all.” 

“ You are feeling better,” said he. The colour’s 
218 


THE DIFFICULTY OF LIFE 


coming back to your lips. What made you turn over like 
that, I wonder? These rooms are not overheated.’’ 

A faint smile curled itself about Joan’s lips. “ I — I — 
do get like that sometimes,” she said, apologetically. 
“ It’s very stupid of me. I always like to get home. I’d 
do anything rather than make a scene.” 

“ You haven’t made a scene.” 

“ I might have done. At such a time one never wants 
to take anything to stop it; and if I had got myself 
safely into a cab, it wouldn’t have mattered whether I had 
fainted or not.” 

Oh, I don’t agree with you. Faints are most dan- 
gerous things. You’re not well. That’s what’s the mat- 
ter with you. You are not as you ought to be. You have 
no business to look as you look now, not if everything is 
all right and straight and happy with you. Now, look 
here, I believe ” 

Don’t tell me what you believe,” said Joan. “ You 
are entirely mistaken.” 


219 


CHAPTER XXVII 


If You should Call Me 
HEN Joan, all in a hurry, said, “ You are entirely 



mistaken,” the words were sufficient to pull Sir 


Robert Masters up with a jerk and to make him shrink 
into himself. 

“ I hope you’ll forgive me,” he said. “ I oughtn’t to 
have said that. But you can understand that your in- 
terests are very dear to me. I think you are looking 
dreadfully ill, and you are looking also dreadfully wor- 
ried. But you are better.” 

“ Yes,” said Joan, rather faintly, “ I am better. All 
the same, I think I should be wise to go home.” 

“ No, don’t go home yet. Yoil’ll frighten your young 
sisters, and if you take them away when they are enjoy- 
ing themselves ” 

I don’t need to take them away. You should see 
that they got home all right? Oh, how foolish I am! 
Why, they have been accustomed to going about in 
town all their lives ; everybody knows them, nobody 
would harm them for worlds. If I slip away now and 
get quietly home, you would tell them that I have gone, 
wouldn’t you?” 

Yes, I’ll tell them, certainly, if you wish it. But I 
wish you would let me see you home. I’ll come back 


here.” 


220 


IF YOU SHOULD CALL ME 


** I would very much rather take a cab. I don’t feel 
equal to walking.” 

Robert Masters drew a deep breath. Evidently she 
was meaning to snub him, put him right into his place, 
to make him feel that she was the property of another 
man, and that the possibility of his taking her home in 
one of the ramshackle old vehicles which they still 
called cabs in Blankhampton was entirely out of the 
question. 

“ Of course, you must do as you like,” he said. “ For- 
give me for being too anxious about you. You’ll let 
me see you into the cab, at least?” 

'' Oh, yes. You are awfully kind. Sir Robert, awfully 
kind. I feel so stupid and so silly to be like this. It isn’t 
like me — at least, I don’t do it very often.” 

They slipped away out of the house, and Sir Robert 
captured a passing cab and helped Joan to get into it. 

'' You’ll tell them I was all right — you won’t frighten 
them?” she said. 

'' No, no, certainly not.” 

“ Come up to dinner to-night,” she said, in a great 
hurry. Yes, half-past seven. We shall all be delighted 
to see you, and I shall be quite myself again.” 

May I ?” he asked. 

'' Why, of course. So good-bye for the present. Tell 
him where to go, won’t you ?” 

He stepped back, gave the order to the man, and 
stood on the edge of the pavement watching the cab 
drive away. 


221 


LITTLE JOAN 


Now, what the devil is the meaning of that ?” he 
said to himself. “ She said I was entirely mistaken. 
Ah, but was I, was I? Am I? I doubt it. I must be 
very wary, I must watch. I mustn’t be offended at 
anything. I must just stand my ground and see how 
events are going to turn out. If what Agnes said this 
morning was right, I shall get her if I am patient enough. 
But it will need a devil of a lot of patience.” 

When Joan Delamere found herself driving away 
from Parish Court in the safe harbourage of a four- 
wheeled cab alone, pent up nature gave way, and she 
wept unrestrainedly. As a matter of fact, the girl was 
thoroughly unnerved and unstrung, and the relief of 
tears was infinitely grateful to her. She felt as if she 
had made an utter fool of herself ; she felt that she was 
at what she might consider the cross-roads of her life; 
the future of herself and several others depended on 
which of these roads she chose at this moment. If 
Mrs. Danvers was right, and there was anything going 
on between Sir Robert and Agnes, it would not do for 
her to come between them. She felt like the mother 
of her sisters. She felt, although she was not the eldest 
daughter, but the middle one of five, that on her de- 
pended the whole future of both Agnes and Violet; 
and if Agnes, with her splendid buoyant health, her 
superb fund of good spirits, her strong, clear, honest 
mind, and her wholesome, affectionate heart, had such 
a chance of happiness as a marriage with Sir Robert 
would be, it was not for Joan to sacrifice them all to 


222 


IF YOU SHOULD CALL ME 


her personal fancy. After all, Ozzie Mainwaring, now 
Lord Moresby, was the love of her life. She must keep 
that well in front of her. She loved him with her whole 
soul, her whole nature ; this newer growth was a some- 
thing over which she ought to have kept a tight hand. 
She had mistaken Ozzie’s due thought and care for the 
future entirely; she had fancied that he was tired of 
her, that he wanted to be free of his bargain ; not be- 
cause he saw the rocks of poverty and the shoals of 
difficulty ahead of them, but because he perhaps had 
seen some other woman. And then the moment pros- 
perity had come, the scales had fallen from her eyes, 
and she saw that he was as faithful as — well, as she had 
not been. 

Oh, how she hated herself! The tears dried upon 
her cheeks ; she felt ashamed, and she blushed for her- 
self even in the darkness. 

By the time the cab turned in at the gates of River- 
side, she had lost all desire for tears. She was flushed, 
and her eyes were glittering, and she was full of a new 
and stern resolve. She would put all this weakness 
away from her; she would be everything to Ozzie that 
he expected and wished and believed her to be. She 
would do everything she could to throw Sir Robert and 
Agnes together; she would hold herself with a tight 
hand, and her heart in a grip of iron. She would let 
Ozzie fix the wedding-day for what date he chose. 

She went straight up to her own room, after telling 
William that Sir Robert would be with them at dinner, 

223 


LITTLE JOAN 


and stayed there until it was time to dress for the even- 
ing. Then she made quite an elaborate toilet, and as 
she took a last look in the glass she thought that her 
appearance was quite brilliant. 

Why, you are quite yourself again,’’ said Sir Robert, 
when she joined him in the drawing-room. 

“ Oh, yes. I told you I should be. I went a little 
queer in my head from the heat or something, that was 
all. I knew an hour’s rest would put me all right again. 
I believe I quite scared you. Sir Robert.” 

“ You did. You quite scared me.” 

She was wearing a great diamond star upon the left 
side of her bodice. It had been given to her by Lord 
Moresby, and was, indeed, after her engagement ring, 
the first of her betrothal presents. Somehow that star 
seemed to fascinate Sir Robert; it seemed as if it put 
her words away from him. He knew instinctively that 
it had been given to her by his rival. And so, until the 
others joined them, they stood talking in stilted and 
artificial sentences which, if they conveyed much, meant 
nothing. 

It was with quite a sigh of relief that Sir Robert turned 
to Agnes when she came in in a pretty gown of some 
soft blue shimmering material which matched her eyes 
and set off to perfection the brilliancy of her fair col- 
ouring. And Joan saw the relief, and her heart died 
within her. 

You are quite all right now, Joan?” said Agnes, 
anxiously. 


224 


IF YOU ^SHOULD CALL ME 


“ Yes, dear, perfectly all right. Please don’t say any- 
thing to father about it. He does worry so when any 
of us ail the least thing,” she explained to Sir Robert. 

“ Naturally,” said Sir Robert. 

Then the others came in, and the subject was 
changed. What an evening it was. Sir Robert sat be- 
tween Joan and Agnes, and both of them — I mean both 
Joan and Sir Robert — were thankful when the dinner 
came to an end. 

Then, when the three men joined the three girls in 
the drawing-room, he somehow sat down by Agnes, 
who had promised to show him a new form of Patience. 
He reflected with grim amusement on the queer way 
in which the most serious events of life turn. Imagine 
him, Robert Masters, the mighty hunter, the man who 
knew not the meaning of the word “ boredom,” sitting 
a yard or two away from the woman of his heart, watch- 
ing a girl to whom he was absolutely indifferent while 
she inducted him into the mysteries of a feeble and futile 
game like Patience, — the refuge, as he expressed it in 
his own thoughts, of lonely old women and the feeble- 
minded generally. 

Then Joan asked Violet to sing something, and Willy, 
who was playing picquet with his father, looked up and 
seconded the request. And Violet, who had a pretty 
little pipe, sang them a song which had just come into 
her repertoire. Like all very young creatures, she was 
the most fond of the latest song, and she sang this one 
with fifty times the amount of expression that she was 

225 


15 


LITTLE JOAN 


ever able to give to a song with which she had been 
acquainted for more than a few weeks. 

“ I think if I were standing, 

With half reluctant feet, 

Within the misty shadows. 

Where earth and heaven meet, 

If you should call me softly, 

Or breathe one tender prayer, 

’Twould win my soul from heaven 
To see you standing there.” 

Her voice was fresh and young, and she had been 
well taught, — taught, that is, to sing so that every word 
had its full effect in the room. Robert Masters kept 
his eyes fixed upon the game of Patience which was 
slowly evolving itself from under Agnes’s slim white 
fingers ; and Joan — Joan was occupied with the embroid- 
ering of an elaborate tea-cloth, so that neither was watch- 
ing the other. 

And Violet sang on : 

“ I think if life were over. 

My parting spirit fled. 

The presence of my lover 
Would wake me from the dead. 

Not all the harps of heaven. 

Though sweet their melody, 

Could keep my soul one second. 

If you had need of me !” 

It so happened that Joan had never heard the song 
before, for Violet was still taking singing-lessons, and 

226 


IF YOU SHOULD CALL ME 

she learned the song with her master. To Joan it 
seemed as if every word was aimed straight at her — 

“ Not all the harps of heaven, 

Though sweet their melody, 

Could keep my soul one second. 

If you had need of me!” 

The singer, in her fresh young voice, again filled the 
room with the haunting melody : 

“If you should stoop to gather. 

One violet from my tomb. 

And whisper your entreaties 
Upon its purple bloom, 

I think that I should feel it. 

And send it constancy, 

So it should live for ever. 

In memory of me 1” 

Somebody gave a sigh when the last notes had died 
away. 

“ I don’t know who sighed,” said Agnes, looking 
round, “ but nobody in this room has any need to sigh 
for a song like that.” 

“ It was I who sighed, child,” said Mr. Delamere, 
quietly. 


227 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


The Days may Come 


“ Genevieve, sweet Genevieve, 

The days may come, the days may go.” 

O Violet was singing in her fresh young voice a few 



days after the day of Mrs. Mount joy’s party, as 


she descended the stairs. She broke off short as she 
reached the last step. 

'' Dear me, is that you, Sir Robert ?” she said to 
someone who had just come in. 

‘^Yes. Is anyone in?” 

Joan is in the morning-room. You’ll find your own 
way in, won’t you? I’m in a fearful hurry.” 

“ Really ? And where are you hurrying off to ?” 
asked Robert Masters, regarding her with immense 
amusement. 

Singing-lesson,” said Violet. “ I’m always late. I 
always arrive panting for breath. I might just as well 
walk sedately and with dignity, for I never can sing the 
first quarter of an hour. He doesn’t seem to see it, the 
old man who teaches me. But I must be off! Good- 
bye ! Daresay I shall see you again.” 

She whisked out of the inner hall and was gone like 
a flash of light out by the front door. Sir Robert looked 
after her with a smile, and then, turning, made his way 


THE DAYS MAY COME 


to the morning-room, which was situated on the side of 
the house furthest from the entrance. For once the 
estimable William was not in evidence, Sir Robert 
having indeed opened the door and walked in without 
ringing the bell. 

He found Joan alone. 

“ Oh, is that you. Sir Robert ?” she said, looking up. 

Yes.’^ 

'' Who were you talking to ? Did I hear voices just 
now?” Joan went on. 

I was talking to madcap Violet,” said Sir Robert. 
‘‘ She was giving me her views on her singing-master. 
Well, now, are you better to-day?” 

“Yes, I think I am better. My throat is still sore,” 
said Joan, who had not been well for the last few days. 
“ It’s awfully good of you to come up and see me.” 

“ Oh, very kind,” said Sir Robert, smiling. 

“ Very kind. Why are you not hunting?” 

“ The meet’s such a long way off,” he explained. 
“ It means boxing so far, and if the hounds happen to 
run the other way, it is such a fagging journey home.” 

“ And this,” said Joan, “ is the keen hunting man who 
spends his whole life in sport, arranges everything all 
the year round for sport ! The man who settles himself 
down in the midst of three packs, so that he may get 
a run every day; then goes to some highly incon- 
venient, out-of-the-world spot and fishes. Then hies 
himself to African scrub, or Indian jungle, or Australian 
bush for bigger game, to say nothing of what he may 


229 


LITTLE JOAN 


find between New York City and San Francisco. Oh, 
Sir Robert Masters !” 

I know,’’ said he, “ I know. It only shows how even 
a hunting man may deteriorate. I met old Mr. Deben- 
ham Hardy just now, hobbling ofif with his valet to 
service at the Parish.” 

'' Ah, he’s making his soul,” said Joan. “ That’s an- 
other question altogether. As long as he could sit on a 
horse, he has been at every meet for the past sixty 
years. Now he can’t sit on a horse, poor old dear, he’s 
making his soul. You haven’t got that excuse.” 

“Well, I don’t know. If I’m not making my soul, 
perhaps I’m doing something quite as important. Any- 
way, I didn’t feel like going out to-day, and I did feel 
like coming up here. I think I’ve got a chill, and per- 
haps you will be kind enough to give me some hot tea 
presently.” 

“ Presently,” said Joan, “ yes, you shall have some 
hot tea and some hot muffin.” 

By a determined effort on her part, they had got back 
to exactly the old stand-point. And yet, was it the old 
stand-point? Not altogether. To all outward seeming 
they were the best and closest of chums — and yet there 
was a difference. In the old times, they had never felt 
at arm’s length with one another; now, although she 
was so gay and friendly with him, he had the continual 
sensation when in her presence of a barrier having been 
set up between them. 

It was not long before William came in with the tea. 


230 


THE DAYS MAY COME 


‘‘Is Miss Agnes at home, William?” said Joan. 

“ I think not, Miss Joan. I think I saw Miss Agnes 
go out about half an hour ago. Mrs. Perkyns has just 
turned in at the gates,” he added, in an undertone. 

“ Oh,” said Joan. As William left the room she 
turned to Sir Robert. “ Mrs. Perkyns is one of our 
afflictions,” she said, with a look of dismay. “ She doesn’t 
come very often ; when she does come, she generally 
gives us all such a setting down that we keep our 
places for a long time by a sort of instinct.” 

“ Why do you put up with her ?” said Sir Robert. 

“ I don’t know. She’s an institution. Father 
wouldn’t like it if we were to snub her so much that 
we got rid of her, and we never do anything to vex 
father, if we can help it.” 

“ She is a great friend of his ?” 

“ Not at all. He dislikes her far more than we do. 
But he and Mr. Perkyns were at school together, and 
I rather fancy her brothers were with them. Anyway, 
she’s Blankhampton born and bred — the very worst 
type of Blankhampton.” 

Then the door opened, and William, with much cere- 
mony, ushered Mrs. Perkyns into the room. Now, Mrs. 
Perkyns was a woman of singularly aggressive dispo- 
sition. Her mission in life, her aim and end of exist- 
ence seemed to be to show other people that she 
thought very small potatoes of them. She regarded the 
estimable William with a cold stare of limitless scorn 
as she passed him by and rustled towards the fireplace, 

231 


LITTLE JOAN 


the fur-trimmed wings of her outer garment sweeping 
several small objects off the little tables as she passed. 

'' How do you do, Joan ?” she said, standing like a 
very large and much-ruffled hen over an extremely sleek 
swallow. “How do you do, Joan? I heard you were 
not very well, so Marjorie and I came up to enquire 
for you. I think you don’t ail much.” 

“ Not very much, thank you, Mrs. Perkyns,” said 
Joan. “ How do you do, Marjorie?” 

“We haven’t seen you since your engagement was 
announced,” said Mrs. Perkyns, in somewhat acid tones. 
“ Is this Lord Moresby ?” 

She knew as well as Joan and Robert Masters himself 
that it was not Lord Moresby, and Joan knew that 
she knew. Only Robert Masters himself was in the 
dark. 

“ No, Mrs. Perkyns,” said Joan, sweetly, “ that is not 
Lord Moresby. You have met him here. You met him 
the day that he was best man to Billy Blake — Maudie’s 
husband, you know.” 

“ Oh, I did, did I ? I meet so many young men, I 
had forgotten.” It was not true, but she uttered the 
lie without so much as the quiver of an eyelash. 

“ Let me introduce Sir Robert Masters to you. Mrs. 
Perkyns — Miss Marjorie Perkyns.” 

Robert Masters stood up and made a lowly bow, and 
immediately crossed over to where Marjorie had al- 
ready seated herself, and sat down beside her. Mrs. 
Perkyns had ensconced herself upon the couch, and 

232 


THE DAYS MAY COME 


pursued her remarks with a brusque, legal air, to which 
she had given a slightly confidential flavour. 

“ So you are going to be married, Joan?’’ 

“Yes, Mrs. Perkyns.” 

“ And you are going to be a lady of title. I suppose 
you won’t know any of us now?” 

“ I shall know everybody that I have known before, 
Mrs. Perkyns,” said Joan. 

“ Ah, you think so now. You wait till you find every- 
body calling you ^ my lady’ on all hands, until you get 
right away from this, and then Blankhampton won’t see 
much more of you.” 

“ I shall always come and see my father, Mrs. Per- 
kyns.” 

“ You think so now. Well, time will show, time will 
show. For my part, I don’t believe in young girls 
marrying so much above their station.” 

“ Lord Moresby doesn’t think himself above me in 
station,” said Joan, meekly. 

“ Ah, but he is.” 

“ He used to think it was just the other way,” said 
Joan, “ until he was Lord Moresby. Now he only thinks 
himself just equal to me.” 

“ That is what he says,” remarked Mrs. Perkyns, 
doubtfully. “ I never did believe in it. Now, look at 
little Laura Travers. If you remember, Laura Travers 
picked up a man in the One-hundred-and thirteenth Hus- 
sars, a big, burly man with a hooked nose and a very 
big moustache. Do you remember?” 

233 


LITTLE JOAN 

• 

Oh, I remember. Laura Travers married Major 
Barrington.’’ 

“ Yes. And Laura was so sweet about it. Oh, so 
sweet — too sweet to last. I don’t believe in such glow- 
ing promises.” 

“ I don’t think I have made any promises, excepting 
to Lord Moresby,” said Joan, quietly. 

“ No ; but you say you are not going to change, and 
you are not going to get your head swollen. Well, 
time will show. Have you seen Laura Barrington 
lately?” 

I saw her the last time I was in London. She didn’t 
strike me as being any different to what she always 
was.” 

'^Didn’t she? Everybody in Blankhampton can’t say 
as much for her, — conceited little upstart. Why, when 
she came home from India in the middle of June, she 
went to the gala in a sealskin jacket, and pretended she 
was cold.” 

'' Perhaps she was.” 

“ A sealskin jacket and muff ! The middle of June ! 
And all the other girls in their muslin frocks.” 

^‘Yes, but they hadn’t just come from India,” said 
Joan. “ You’ll have some tea, Mrs. Perkyns, won’t 
you ?” 

“ Thank you, yes.” 

So Joan poured out the tea with a queer little smile 
quivering about the corners of her mouth. And Sir 
Robert got up and ministered to them. 


234 


THE DAYS MAY COME 


Then Mrs. Perkyns went on afresh. “ You are going 
to be married soon, Joan?’^ 

We haven’t settled the day yet,” Joan replied. 

“ Oh. Take my advice, my dear girl, — you have no 
mother, now, more’s the pity, for a better woman and 
a better friend never breathed in this world, — take my 
advice, my dear Joan, — don^t have a long engagement. 
There’s many a slip, you know, ’twixt the cup and the 
lip.” 

“ I don’t think so,” said Joan. I don’t feel like 
rushing my engagement over in no time. It — it was 
rather sudden. I didn’t know that Mr. Mainwaring had 
come into the title. I didn’t know anything until he 
came here one day and we were engaged. I have to get 
used to it a little.” 

“ I must say,” said Mrs. Perkyns, dropping her voice 
to its softest tones, I must say that you are taking a 
very curious way of doing it.” 

Mrs. Perkyns !” 

A very curious way of doing it. I did hear, yes, I 
did hear,” went on the lady, “that there was a very 
heavy affair on between you and this gentleman here. 
All the town was sure that you were going to be Lady 
Masters before one could say knife, so to speak. I 
wouldn’t let my girls be talked about as you have been 
talked about, little Joan. I say it in all friendship. I 
don’t want to say one word that I wouldn’t wish some- 
body to say to my own girls under similar circum- 
stances, but I must say that I think you are taking a 


235 


LITTLE JOAN 

very curious way of getting used to being engaged to 
another man.” 

“ And I must say,” said Joan, very quietly, that you 
and Blankhampton are a little out of it for once. He 
comes here very often,” she said, indicating Sir Robert 
by a movement of her eyelids, “but you should ask 
Mrs. Danvers to tell you what his attraction in Blank- 
hampton is.” 

She felt herself a hypocrite, a cheat, almost a liar. 
And yet, she fiercely reminded herself, it was true. He 
had cared for her, but now 

“ Well, as to that,” said Mrs. Perkyns, “ I suppose 
you mean Agnes. Then, in that case, I beg your par- 
don, Joan. I apologise. Now, I come to think of it, 
I did see them just turning in the Winter Garden to- 
gether this morning; and now I come to think of it, 
it did look like a case.” 


236 


CHAPTER XXIX 
The Days may Go 



IR ROBERT MASTERS did not go again to Riv- 


erside for three days after the visit of Mrs. Per- 
kyns to Joan. As a matter of fact, on the two days 
following that afternoon, hunting fixtures were so near to 
Blankhampton that for very shame he felt compelled to 
take advantage of them. On the first evening he was 
dining at the Deanery, and the second at the mess of the 
cavalry regiment then quartered at Blankhampton. On 
the third day, just after his return from a stiff day’s run, 
which had not allowed him to get back into town till 
after five o’clock, he was just coming round from the 
stables to the hotel when he ran sheer up against Agnes 
Delamere. 

“Ah, Miss Agnes, is that you?” he exclaimed. 

“ Oh, Sir Robert ! Why, where have you been ? I’ve 
seen nothing of you for days.” 

“ No ; I’ve been doing my duty. Three of the best 
days I’ve ever been out in my life. To-morrow I shall 
stay at home.” 

“ You haven’t been near us,” said Agnes. 

“ No, I haven’t. I ” And then he told her where 

he had been. “ By the way. Miss Agnes, come into 
Bonners and have a cup of tea — that is, if you don’t 
mind being seen with me in this disreputable state.” 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Oh, I don’t mind your state at all. But are you sure 
you ought not to get straight out of those things?” 

No, no. I shall be all right for half an hojur. I’m 
not the least wet.” 

So they went together up the street, and turned in 
at the great confectioner’s shop, which played such an 
important part in the social scheme of Blankhampton. 

“ And now,” said he, as he sat down at the table after 
having ordered tea, “ now tell me all the news.” 

Well, there is some news,” said Agnes. Lord 
Moresby came down yesterday.” 

“ Staying with you ?” 

''Yes. I don’t think Joan exactly intended it, but he 
arrived bag and baggage, and absolutely declined to 
go to an hotel, so he had to be taken in.” 

"And you think ” 

" Exactly what I thought when I first spoke to you 
on the subject. And, by the bye, Joan told me to tell 
you if I saw you anywhere about, that she expected you 
to come up to dinner to-night.” 

" That’s awfully kind of her.” 

" She said it in such a curious way,” Agnes went on. 
" Ah, yes. Miss Smith, that’s very nice. I do like cream, 
you know, and I think you had better give us some 
more muffins, because Sir Robert is ravenous and is 
sure to eat all these himself. You like your milk in first, 
Sir Robert, don’t you?” 

" I don’t mind. I don’t know any difference.” 

" Oh, there’s a great difference,” she said, as the 
238 


THE DAYS MAY GO 


golden-haired young lady who presided over that part 
of the tea-room went out of hearing, ^Hhere’s a great 
difference. Well, as I was saying just now, when Joan 
told me to tell you that, she said it in such a funny way 
that I should have known something was up if I had 
been entirely in the dark up to that moment.’’ 

“ But she’s very happy with Mainwaring.” 

“ You wouldn’t think so if you were living in the 
same house. He is happy; he’s proud, and proprie- 
torial, and a little hectoring. Tells us quite plainly that 
our room is better than our company, and generally 
behaves as if he had been married to Joan for some 
years. But Joan I’m less satisfied about than I was 
when I first spoke to you about her. Have some muf- 
fin?” 

He was stirring his tea absently round and round, his 
eyes fixed upon Agnes’s charming face. What did 
she say ?” he asked, as he helped himself from the plate 
she handed to him. 

She asked me if I was going into the town, and if 
I would get her a fringe net, medium size, of the dark- 
est brown that I could buy. She said Fd better bring 
two or three whilst I was about it, which was sensible 
enough.” 

“Well?” said he, impatiently. 

“Yes, I know. It’s dreadful to talk to you about 
fringe nets, but I want to give you the — the atmosphere 
of what took place, and I can’t give it to you without 
repeating the entire conversation. Do you see?” 

239 


LITTLE JOAN 


I beg your pardon,” said he, humbly. 

‘‘ All right,” said Agnes. “ Well, she told me about 
the fringe nets, and then she said I was to come in here 
and order some sponge cakes and some meringues ; and 
then she said I was to be sure to look in at Clarkson’s, 
the jewellers, and tell them to send for the claret jug 
that’s got something wrong with the hinge. And then 
she said, in an offhand kid of way, ^ Oh, by the bye, 
Aggie, if you should chance to run across Sir Robert 
— and I daresay you will — you might just as well tell 
him to come up to dinner to-night if he has nothing 
better to do.’ ” 

Oh,” said Sir Robert. 

“ Yes, I know it sounds very offhand, and she said it 
in a sort of way as if you were a dog that she was 
throwing a bone to ; but Joan’s face and the little tre- 
mor in her voice betrayed her entirely. Her colour 
came and went ever so quickly, and she looked away 
from me in a guilty kind of way, as if she didn’t want 
me to have any ideas on the subject. I have ideas,” 
said Agnes, looking down into her teacup with a very 
thoughtful air, “ and I am more convinced of the truth 
of what I told you the other day than I was even when 
I said it.” 

'' Unfortunately,” said Sir Robert, “ she is committed 
to Moresby.” 

She’s committed to Moresby, that’s true ; but 
there’s many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip ; and if 
you want Joan, you take my advice, and hang on until 


240 


THE DAYS MAY GO 


the wedding-ring is actually on her finger and she is 
no longer Joan Delamere, but the Countess of Moresby 
and Ozzie Mainwaring’s wife. And, for the love of 
heaven, Sir Robert, never give me away ; for if you do, 
Ozzie Mainwaring will as surely have my blood — fig- 
uratively, if not actually — as you and I are sitting here 
at this tea-table at this moment.” 

He looked up quickly with a swift denial of any be- 
trayal coming from him upon his lips, but Agnes was 
not looking at him ; on the contrary, she was looking 
straight through the large plate-glass door at the very 
end of the tea-room which led from the shop into the 
street. It happened that, in the large tea-room at Bon- 
ner's palatial establishment, the tea-room was merely a 
huge extension of the shop but slightly screened from 
public gaze, — that is to say, as much public gaze as could 
be obtained through the single plate-glass door. 

“Joan and Ozzie Mainwaring have just gone by,” 
she said. 

“You are sure?” 

“ Perfectly certain. And what is more, Joan saw us. 
I caught her face looking full in as she passed. I could 
only see his tall head beyond hers, and in profile, but 
Joan looked right in; and Joan looked — oh, Pd rather 
not say it. Sir Robert.” 

“ How ? What do you mean ? Don’t keep me in sus- 
pense. What did she look like?” 

“ She didn’t look like somebody gazing in through a 
pane of glass — she looked like somebody fast held in 
i6 241 


LITTLE JOAN 


prison trying hard to get out. However, you’ll come 
up to dinner to-night at eight o’clock, won’t you? Yes, 
Miss Smith, these muffins are very nice. I’m like Sir 
Robert, I’m very greedy to-day. Sir Robert, don’t you 
think you had better have some more ?” 

“ No, Miss Agnes, I don’t think that I will,” he re- 
plied, promptly. “ But I would like another cup of tea, 
if you would be so amiable as to pour it out for me.” 

“ Oh, certainly. And then I must make a bolt for 
home, for I have half a dozen things to do. You must 
go and get out of those hunting togs, which must be 
more or less damp.” 

Ten minutes later they were walking gayly oif down 
the street, and parted almost at the door of the Golden 
Swan, — parted, indeed, when Agnes went into the jewel- 
ler’s shop at which she had promised her sister she 
would call. 

Sir Robert, after a tubbing and a smoke and a lounge 
down to the club to have a look at the papers, hied him 
to Riverside. 

“ So glad you could come,” said Joan in most con- 
ventional tones, when he was announced. “ I told Agnes 
to be sure to ask you if she chanced to see you, and I 
thought it was very probable she would.” 

“ Well, I haven’t seen Miss Agnes for four or five 
days until this afternoon. I’ve had a tremendously busy 
time,” he declared : “ three stiff days’ hunting and three 
dinner engagements.” 

Really ? I thought you had deserted us,” said Joan^ 
242 


THE DAYS MAY GO 


with a gay little air which sat but strangely upon her 
wan face. 

Not the least in the world. You know, Miss Joan, 
how this place is subject to what I call bursts of social 
events. Afternoon tea parties, of course, are always 
with us, but three dinner engagements three nights run- 
ning is, you will admit, a little out of the ordinary. I 
was very lucky to persuade Miss Agnes to come and 
have tea with me at Bonner’s this afternoon.” 

'‘Yes, she told me — in fact, I saw you.” 

" Really?” 

" Yes, I saw you having tea there. We were down 
in the town. Ozzie,” she said, turning to where Moresby 
was talking to Willy Delamere, " you remember Sir 
Robert Masters, don’t you ?” 

" Why, of course, I do,” said Moresby, turning round. 
" How are you, Masters ?” 

" Thanks, Moresby, I’m all right. I see you have 
come into your kingdom. It was very sad to hear of 
poor Kenneth Mainwaring’s death-=-he was a good 
chap, everybody was very sorry, but it must have made 
a great difference to you.” 

" A very great difference,” said Moresby, with hearty 
geniality. " My dear chap, you don’t know what it is,” 
he went on, “ to be as I was. Many and many a time 
I have felt if I could only live on my family I should 
be all right.” 

" And now you won’t feel that any more,” said Sir 
Robert. 


243 


LITTLE JOAN 


Oh, no, I suppose, never any more. I used to feel — 
in fact, I said as much to Joan herself — that if I could 
only hang on until I got the command I should have 
lived my life as much as I ever could live it — and after 
the command, there would be the deluge.” 

And now you have chucked it all, and you are not 
going to wait for the command at all.” 

“ Yes, I have chucked it all. I chucked it the moment 
I knew. There comes a moment in the lives of most 
soldiers when, if they can chuck, they do. I did ; and 
now all I care about is getting married as quickly as 
possible, settling down, and doing my duty by the state 
in every possible way to the end of my life. Oh, yes, 
it’s a humdrum ambition — I know it — but it has advan- 
tages that all the glamour of the army cannot give 
one.” 

I sympathise with you entirely,” said Robert Mas- 
ters, quietly. 

He spoke so quietly that Joan, who was standing 
near, strained every nerve to listen to what would fol- 
low. What followed was that Lord Moresby brought 
a friendly hand hard down upon the other’s shoulder. 

“Well, old chap,” he said, speaking in a very low 
tone so that Joan could only just catch the words, “ if 
all I hear be true, you are not likely to be very long 
in following my example. And faith, there’s not a man 
in the length and breadth of the land that will as heartily 
wish you luck as I, who have just shown you the way.” 


244 


CHAPTER XXX 


No Use 



R the life of her Joan Delamere could not resist 


X turning to look at Sir Robert Masters when her 
fiance so heartily, and yet with the shade of patronage of 
the newly-engaged man, pointed out the road down which 
he was expected immediately to travel. Neither man 
was looking at her, and she saw that Robert Masters 
drew himself up with the very faintest touch of resent- 
ment at the other’s familiarity. 

Oh, my dear fellow,” he said, you mustn’t believe 
all you hear. Report has married me at least twenty 
times in the last ten years, and I am not married yet. 
Whether I am likely to be in the dim and distant future 
is altogether another matter. We can leave that until 
the time arises. Suppose we go into the dining-room 
and find ourselves a drink.” 

The two men moved off together, and Joan put up 
a hand to her head with a curious feeling of supporting 
herself. As she did so the flash of the diamonds on her 
finger caught her attention, and she dropped her hand 
again with a hopeless feeling that she was fairly caught 
in the toils and that nothing could release her. 

It was only a few hours after this that Lord Moresby 
himself began to press her hard to name the day of 
their wedding. 


245 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ I find,” he said, when he had settled himself com- 
fortably, with his arm about her waist, “ I find that my 
cousin’s affairs are not nearly so complicated as they 
might have been. There are only five people who bene- 
fit under his will — his widow, their daughter, myself, 
and my two sisters.” 

“ He has left your mother nothing?” 

“Not a penny. Well, there was no obligation on him 
to do so. You see, she’s married again. To his widow, 
of course, he left everything that it was possible to 
leave her, with reversion to her only surviving child ; 
that is natural enough. There are, however, certain 
heirlooms which he has left to me — I mean to say — I 
think really I am taking leave of my senses, little girl — 
I mean to say that there are certain things which he has 
left to me to be considered as heirlooms. He has left 
each of my sisters a thousand pounds merely to remem- 
ber him by. For myself, I have all the entailed prop- 
erty, which is between fifty and sixty thousand a year. 
I told the lawyers that I was just going to be married, 
and that I should need to discuss settlements and so on 
with your father, and that I didn’t see any particular 
obstacles need stand in our way.” 

“ What did the lawyers say ?” 

“They said it was a great pity that I had not left 
myself free so as to marry my cousin’s daughter.” 

“ I think it is rather a pity,” said Joan. 

“ Oh, yes, my dear child, it is a pity as far as the fam- 
ily goes. It would have kept everything together. 

246 


NO USE 


There’s a little estate that my cousin bought many 
years ago, and that he has left to his wife, with reversion 
to the daughter. But things fell out differently. I 
would rather have you for my wife than fifty thousand 
estates.” 

“Yes?” said Joan. It flashed into her mind that 
he had not always thought so; that he had but a very 
few months back — nay, a very few weeks back — weighed 
her in the balance against this world’s dross, and had 
decided that he did not love her well enough to face 
poverty with her. “ It does seem a pity from the law- 
yers’ point of view,” she ended. 

“We haven’t got to consider the lawyers’ point of 
view, little girl,” said Moresby, “ but our own, and only 
our own — nothing but our own. Now, how soon do 
you think you could get ready — I mean how soon could 
you persuade your father to let us be married?” 

“ Oh, not very soon,” said Joan. 

“ But you want to be married, little girl ; don’t you ? 
Think of the time we shall have together, you and I, 
compared with what we have been used to. Money will 
be absolutely no object to us. We shall be able to go 
where we like, live as we like, do as we like. And to 
think that only a few weeks ago you and I were as far 
apart as the poles themselves.” 

“ So far apart,” said Joan, “ that I have not got over 
the feeling of entire separation that had possession of 
me. Three months ago I — I made up my mind to let 
you go. I — I find it very difficult to switch myself back 

247 


LITTLE JOAN 


to the same place that we were in at that time. I — I — 
you must forgive me, Ozzie. If you had married me 

when you went to India ’’ 

My dear child, I couldn’t.'’ 

“ No; but if you had, I should have been your abject 
slave for ever. As it is, I feel that you did not value 
me so very much. I feel that you are very fond of me, 
but you are only fond of me second to money, and — 
and — I haven’t got used to the feeling that you are 
very rich ; not even these rings and things have made 
me feel that you have more than a half interest in me. 
You must give me time. Don’t hurry it. Sometime 
next year — perhaps in a year from now — we will be 
married, but just now I couldn’t do it; it is quite im- 
possible. I have been through a great deal, although 
perhaps you would hardly call it so, and you must give 
me time.” 

“If you feel like that,” said he, in a tone that was 
more than half offended, “ we had better put it off in- 
definitely. But you won’t expect me to be hanging 
about at Blankhampton ? I think I had better go away, 
and you can send for me when you feel that things can 
be put into train, and — er — and — er — you do begin to 
feel like — like keeping your vows. As for me, I am 
no humbug; I never pretend what I don’t feel; and I 
didn’t feel like dragging you down, trailing you about 
at the tail of a regiment with a husband over head and 
ears in debt who couldn’t keep up his own position, let 
alone the proper position of a wife — I don’t pretend 

248 


NO USE 


it. I never did feel like that — I don't feel like it now 
' — but when I came into my kingdom my first thought 
was of you. I didn’t wait to find out anything — I came 
straight to you. Whatever I have, whatever I may be, 
I have laid at your feet, and you must do what you like 
with it. I think I had better go away and see whether, 
in a few months, you will come back to your old self. 
You are not your old self now, little girl. There’s 
something about you I don’t understand, there’s some- 
thing about you that hurts me every time I look at 
you.” 

You don’t care for me,” she said. You only came 
back from a sense of honour.” 

“Oh, my God! I dont care for you! I only came 
hack from a sense of honour! Are there any men who 
come back to women they don’t care for from a sense 
of honour? Not this kind of man, that I can assure 
you. What is it, little girl? Did you truly and really 
think that I wanted to get out of my — my — well, it 
wasn’t an engagement, but did you think that I wanted 
our relations to be at an end, that I had grown tired 
of you? Did you really, truly, honestly think that?” 

“ Yes,” said Joan, “ I did come to think that.” 

“ My God, what a blind, blundering fool I must have 
been! What did I say? What did you do with my 
letter ?” 

“ Never mind your letter,” said Joan. 

“ Have you got it ?” 

“ Somewhere. That doesn’t matter. If you were to 


249 


LITTLE JOAN 


read it yourself you mightn’t feel exactly what it made 
me feel. How could you? I — I — don’t pretend, Ozzie, 
that I didn’t know you loved me — in a way, but I wanted 
to be loved just for myself, without any thought of 
money, or horses, or fine jewels, or clothes — I don’t 
care for any of those things. I wanted you to feel as 
I felt — that if we had to live in one room, love would 
glorify that room ; that if we had to dine off a single 
dish, love would make that dish taste more sweet than 
any banquet that ever was spread before a king. But 
you didn’t feel that way, and it hurt. What’s the good 
of my pretending anything else? What’s the good of 
my making believe that I wasn’t ready to take you 
when you were poor Ozzie Mainwaring, over head and 
ears in debt, not knowing which way to turn ; a bad 
match, an ineligible, a detrimental. When you came to 
me, th.e Earl of Moresby, with fifty or sixty thousand 
a year, you thought I should be ready to lie down at 
your feet and grovel to you. I — I wasn’t. I haven’t 
got over it. I — I — may come round after a time, but 
I must have time. It was all so sudden — all done in a 
minute. You didn’t give me a word of warning. Why, 
you know I went down like a log on the floor. I have 
never been the same since my mother died in that hor- 
ribly sudden way. It’s very hard upon you, but I am as 
I am. I can’t help it.” 

If he had been less disturbed in mind, more able to 
regard her as a type than as that most coveted posses- 
sion the one woman in the world, he would have real- 


250 


NO USE 


ized the truth ; and the truth was that she had changed, 
the truth was that the real love had come too late, or 
what seemed to her too late. 

He was on the point of yielding to her desire that he 
should go away and leave her to find her soul, as it were, 
when some curious revulsion of feeling took possession 
of him, and he held her yet closer to his side. 

No use, little girl,” he said, hoarsely, it’s no use 
your asking me to go away, and stay away patiently 
waiting until you learn by yourself to think of me just 
as you used to do. I always had to make up your 
mind for you, I always had to take the lead of you, 
and I must do so now. I decline to wait. I have your 
promise ; I hold you to it. I will see your father to- 
night, get all the horrid business details over and done 
with, and then we will be married. And after that, if 
you don’t think of me just as I want you to think of 
me, I must teach you the way, that’s all.” 


251 


CHAPTER XXXI 


Robert Delamere’s Doubts 



HERE is an old proverb which says : “ You may 


X take your horse to the water, but you cannot make 
him drink.” And so Lord Moresby found in the case 
of Joan Delamere. It was a very easy thing for him to 
tell her that they would get the business details over 
and be married at once, and that if she did not think 
of him as he wanted her to think of him, he must teach 
her the way, and so regard the whole question as fin- 
ished and settled. Joan could be very obstinate, and 
occasionally was so. 

She freed herself from the jealous clasp of his arm 
with a curious little gesture which was almost one of 
disdain. 

“ We’ll talk about it another time, Ozzie,” she said, 
with a dignity which seemed to put him miles away from 
her. “ Not to-night. I am tired.” 

She moved away from him and went across to the 
door of the larger room, where the others were all 
gathered together. Then she looked back at him. 
Something in his attitude struck her with a feeling that 
was rhidway between pity and love. In any case, 
Ozzie,” she said, I prefer to go back to the others. 
When mother was there, it was rather different — there 


252 


ROBERT DELAMERE’S DOUBTS 


was always a centre-pin for the family to revolve round 
— but now if I leave my father and the others to their 
own devices, and come in here and they all know that 
I am spooning with you, I don’t think that it is very 
nice. We’ll talk about it another day. Come,” she said, 
holding out her hand to him. 

Joan,” he said, still speaking very hoarsely, “ you 
are not really changed to me?” 

Well, I think I am, Ozzie. I’m not the girl I used 
to be. I have a very tenacious nature, and it seems to 

me as if I have to get used to any new Oh, don’t 

talk about it, please, please! It would be much better if 
you went away and I never saw you again.” 

That I can’t and won’t do,” he said. “ I shall see 
your father in the morning.” 

The result of this conversation was that Lord 
Moresby followed her into the drawing-room with such 
a cloud on his face that it was patent to the least inter- 
ested spectator that something unpleasant had happened 
between them. With the exception of Mr. Delamere, 
who was sitting a little apart reading, the others had 
settled down to some ridiculous round game, and when 
the engaged couple appeared, Willy Delamere called 
out to them that there was plenty of room if they cared 
to join them. 

“Yes, yes, we will join you,” said Joan. 

She drew a chair between Willy and Violet, and Vio- 
let pushed her chair away so as to make room for Lord 
Moresby. 


253 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Here are your counters,” said Willy, handing a little 
tray to each in which counters had been served out. 
“ Now for a fresh deal.” 

He took up a pack of cards and began dealing for 
the first Jack. Agnes, who was sitting next to Sir Rob- 
ert, turned and whispered something to him. 

“ Eh ? I don’t catch it,” said Sir Robert, bending his 
head a little. 

“ What did I tell you ?” said Agnes, dropping her 
voice and barely breathing the words, so that nobody 
but him to whom they were spoken could hear. “ What 
did I tell you? Everything’s not right there. Look at 
their two faces.” 

Sir Robert did not, however, look directly at them, 
but, on the contrary, kept his eyes fixed upon Agnes. 
Just at that moment Joan looked up. If only Agnes 
had known it, she who was so eager for her sister’s 
happiness, she who was so anxious to further Sir Rob- 
ert’s cause, she would have realized that at that very 
moment she was putting the time still further back, 
because she was instilling into Joan’s mind the feeling 
that, without doubt, it was not she who was the principal 
attraction in bringing Sir Robert to Riverside. 

Well, the evening went by. Lord Moresby lost seven 
shillings six pence, and Violet was the triumphant win- 
ner of ten shillings, which fairly well explains the rise 
and fall of the game. And just at the last moment, 
when the two men were taking leave, Moresby said very 
quietly to Mr. Delamere that he should be glad if he 

254 


ROBERT DELAMERE’S DOUBTS 


could find him at his office during the course of the 
morning. 

“ Yes, certainly. Any time after ten o’clock,” replied 
Mr. Delamere. 

The more Lord Moresby thought about the general 
state of affairs the more certain he was that his only 
course was to push the marriage along. His feelings at 
that time were a curious mixture of savageness and 
softness. At one moment he told himself that it was 
preposterous that Joan should let herself come to feel 
the least little bit differently towards him. “ After all,” 
his thoughts ran, “ I have never thought any differently 
of her. I cared for her too much to want to drag her 
down to a life of abject poverty and the misery of try- 
ing to keep up a position on nothing, but in my heart 
I never altered towards her ; and although I would have 
given her up for her own good, the moment that the 
luck turned she was the one that I wanted to share it 
with.” 

Thus he savagely argued to himself. Then the softer 
side was heard. “ After all,” he said to himself, she 
is not a girl to be taken up and set down like a rag 
doll. She’s worth winning, and, gad. I’ll win her! 
It’s a waste of time, of course — it’s all been a waste of 
time. What does the old saw say? ^ Faint heart never 
won fair lady.’ Joan is worth winning — too true, too 
steadfast, too honest to change her mood with every 
puff of the wind of fortune. I ought to value her the 
more — and I do.” 


255 


LITTLE JOAN 


It was full of such thoughts as these that he presented 
himself the following morning at Mr. Delamere’s office 
and got everything put in train for an immediate wed- 
ding. 

I think you are hurrying it too much, you know, 
Moresby,” said Joan’s father, when he put six weeks 
ahead as the furthest limit at which the wedding-day 
might be fixed. 

“ No, no, sir. Saving your presence as a man of law 
yourself, I know what lawyers are, and I have told 
Tharples and Busby that for once they must do things 
with what they are pleased to call indecent haste. I 
don’t in the least mind abuse, but, saving your pres- 
ence, if I leave it to them it will be six years instead 
of six weeks before my wedding can come off. I have 
wasted time enough, Mr. Delamere ; I don’t want to 
waste a day more than is absolutely necessary. So if 
you would send up and see Tharples and Busby, and 
would make them feel that I really am in earnest about 
this matter, you would be doing both them and me an 
inestimable service. I shouldn’t like to change the law- 
yers who have had the Moresby affairs in hand for the 
past fifty years, but I certainly shall if they don’t bestir 
themselves in this particular instance.” * 

“ My dear fellow,” said Mr. Delamere, “ it’s perfectly 
natural. I sympathize with you entirely. What I don’t 
quite understand is that Joan herself talks about a year’s 
engagement.” 

Ah,” said Moresby, with an air of seeming ease 
256 


ROBERT DELAMERE’S DOUBTS 


and with an assurance which astonished even himself, 
‘‘ that’s Joan’s way of trying to spare your feelings. 
Joan is so extraordinarily tender-hearted. She can’t 
bear to think of what will happen to you when I have 
taken her away. Now, in a sense, Mr. Delamere, I 
don’t want to take her away at all. Because she’s mar- 
rying me, there’s no reason why she should be sepa- 
rated — I mean really separated from her own people.” 

‘'We cannot shut our eyes to the fact,” said Mr. Dela- 
mere, “ that you are the Earl of Moresby, and that the 
Countess of Moresby and Joan Delamere are two very 
widely different persons. The day that Joan becomes 
your wife, she will have the duties of your station to think 
of before her natural affections for her own people. 
You have your family to think of, your position, your 
relations, your tenants to care for, your place to fill, 
and if Joan is to be a good wife to you — and I could not 
conceive of her marrying anybody to whom she was 
not a good wife — her duties will entirely swamp all the 
life that she has lived up to now.” 

“ I don’t see it, Mr. Delamere — I can’t see it. I have 
no duties more important than my duty to my wife will 
be, and my wife can have no affections which will swamp 
her love for her own people. As to her being Countess 
of Moresby, we shall both be very new at the game. I 
have been a poor relation all my life, a hanger-on as 
much as I would be. I was educated by the late lord, 
educated because he felt that I might come into the title 
one day, and he wouldn’t care that the next Lord 
17 257 


LITTLE JOAN 


Moresby should have been educated anywhere than 
at Eton; otherwise I think my relationship to the 
Moresby family was an absolute detriment to me. Until 
I succeeded to my cousin’s place I never went there; 
they didn’t like me — they gave me no opportunity of 
liking them. As for the tenantry, my wife’s relations 
can have nothing to do with my tenants. My place 
in the world is the place that I have made for myself 
in the years that have gone by, not the place that is 
going to be mine from now on. At all events, I mean 
to have everything put in train so that my marriage 
can take place as soon as Joan consents to it.” 

For some minutes after Lord Moresby had left the 
office Robert Delamere sat buried in thought at his great 
desk. It had just dawned upon him that there was a 
screw loose somewhere between those two. 

“ He wants to be married right off, Joan wants to 
wait a year. I don’t understand that. It is against 
nature for a boy and girl who love each other to wait 
a year when they have an income of fifty or sixty thou- 
sand. Can’t make it out. The question is, what can 
I do? Well, practically, I can do nothing. That’s where 
a man is so handicapped. If Margaret had been here, 
she would have known in a moment — in a moment. 
Well, I suppose I must do what he wants, and leave it 
to Joan’s own common sense that she will do nothing 
foolish in what concerns the most important step of her 
life.” 


258 


CHAPTER XXXII 


Plenty of Time 



OW, it happened that while most people in Blank- 


T \| hampton knew the exact ins and outs of the his- 
tory of the Delameres as a family, many men who were 
quartered in the garrison and many others who were 
only to be regarded as birds of passage in the old city 
had not the least idea that a certain curious old passage, 
leading between two houses a little way past the Golden 
Swan, was called Delamere Court. But Delamere Court 
was, as I have explained earlier in this story, the cradle 
of the family, and it was here in the quaint, old-fash- 
ioned house that Robert Delamere received Lord 
Moresby when he came to make a very determined 
effort to hurry on his marriage as quickly as possible. 

But there was one bird of passage in Blankhampton 
who knew all about Delamere Court, and who saw 
Moresby come out looking very happy and contented 
with himself, and, taking a turn to the right, go rapidly 
up the street in the direction of the club. And that 
bird of passage was Robert Masters. 

“ Moresby, by Jove !” his thoughts ran. Been inter- 
viewing Delamere himself. Well, I suppose it's all up. 
I don't feel that it would become me to try and force 
any confession out of Joan other than such as she seems 


259 


LITTLE JOAN 


to wish me to accept. She doesn’t care for him — Agnes 
is perfectly right. Yet what can I do ?” 

His thoughts had gone thus far when he ran, liter- 
ally ran, against Agnes herself. 

“ Dear me. Sir Robert, your wits are wool-gathering !” 
she said. “ You almost knocked me down.” 

“ I am so sorry. Miss Agnes,” he exclaimed, peni- 
tently. I was going along in a brown study — it’s an 
awfully bad habit — do forgive me.” 

“ Oh, yes, there’s nothing to forgive,” said Agnes, 
good-naturedly. “Where are you going?” 

“ I’m quite at a loose end,” said Sir Robert. “ May 
I put the same question to you ?” 

“ Oh, certainly. I’m out on the gad to see what I can 
see. I came out of a shop over there and I saw Ozzie 
Main waring just turning out of the entrance to the 
office. That was why I came this way.” 

“ Let’s turn back and walk that way, then,” said Sir 
Robert. “ I, too, saw Moresby come out of your father’s 
office. I suppose he’s been ” 

“ I suppose so,” said Agnes in disgusted accents. “ He 
means to force it along anyway.” 

“ Of course he does. I should myself under similar 
circumstances.” It was characteristic of Sir Robert that 
he had any amount of sympathy with the man who had 
won the promise of the woman that he wanted to have 
for his own more than any other woman in the world. 
“ Things are working to a head. Miss Agnes,” he said, 
as they turned and went up the street together. His 

260 


PLENTY OF TIME 


tone was off-hand, don’t-care-ish, and a casual ob- 
server might have been forgiven for beliving that he 
took no interest in Joan whatever. 

Oh, yes, he means to have his own way ; but, all the 
same, Joan means to have hers. Joan told my father 
at breakfast this morning that she did not mean to be 
married for a year, and when Joan makes up her mind, 
it's a very clever man or woman than can induce her 
to change it." 

“ It would be a very bold man," said Sir Robert, 
who in the present circumstances would broach the 
subject to her." 

Perhaps," said Agnes. I don't stand in that awe 
of Joan myself. I tell her what I think, and I shall 
continue to do so." 

“ You haven’t told her that I " . 

“ No, I haven’t mentioned you — oh, I have mentioned 
you casually, of course. I've generally remarked it in 
a careless kind of way when I happen to have seen you, 
but as to drawing Joan into a discussion about you — 
well, Joan never seems to me to be taking any." 

Sir Robert gave vent to a short laugh. He was so 
much in love with Joan that he admired even those 
qualities which made her difficult of approach. They 
had by that time walked until they were clear of St. 
Thomas's Street, and by a sort of tacit consent they 
strolled on across the Parish Place and into the western 
entrance of the Winter Gardens. It happened that very 
moment, as they crossed the road and disappeared 

261 


LITTLE JOAN 


within the gates of that Elysium of young people who 
inhabit the old cathedral city, that Joan herself looked 
forth from the window of her dressmaker’s waiting- 
room, which happened to command an excellent view 
of both road and gateway. So for herself she saw 
Agnes, tall, erect, winsome, and distinguee, go saunter- 
ing along with the man whom she had refused to marry 
— whom she had reluctantly refused to marry. 

She sat down on the nearest chair, feeling quite sick 
and nervous. So it was true, after all. Oh, there was 
no mistaking the way in which the girl looked up at 
him, the way in which the man looked down upon the 
girl, the slow, dawdling, interested walk. Nay, she even 
knew by a sort of instinct that they would take that turn 
to the left, just as they reached that part of the Winter 
Garden, where two paths met, along which, from her 
coign of vantage, she could see no further. Yes, they 
were going to the left, and to the left was the little 
kiosk which had given shelter to one generation after 
another of Blankhampton lovers. 

She turned her head as the dressmaker came into the 
room, with a sick and angry throb at her heart. 

“ I’m so sorry to keep you waiting. Miss Delamere. 
I really couldn’t help myself, although you had an ap- 
pointment. Lady Brookes was here, and I couldn’t get 
her quite finished off. Your dress is ready, if you will 
come into the next room.” 

And so for nearly an hour Joan stood there while the 
dressmaker pinched and tweaked and pulled and pinned, 

262 


PLENTY OF TIME 


and smoothed with keen professional fingers this way 
and that, babbling of fashions the while. A lovely 
trousseau, Miss Delamere,” she remarked during the 
process of the fitting, “ and Lady Brookes is most par- 
ticular about it. Every single thing is being made in 
Blankhampton. We are even doing the wedding-dress.” 

Ah, yes. Miss Brookes is going to be married,” 
said Joan, “ yes. It’s a nice wedding, isn’t it?” 

“ I think so. The gentleman came here with her one 
day. He’s in the Life Guards — very particular about 
everything. Insists upon her having a great deal of 
white ; says they’ll expect it in London in a bride.” 

“ I suppose so,” said Joan. 

“ I hope you’ll give me plenty of time. Miss Delamere, 
when you’re getting your things — that is, if you honour 
me. 

“ Yes, I’m going to have my things made here when 
1 am married,” said Joan; most of them.” 

“ I did hear,” said Miss Mercer, “ I did hear that ” 

Not just yet,” said Joan, breaking in ruthlessly. 
“ I’ll give you plenty of time.” 

Miss Brookes has only been engaged three weeks.” 

“ Ah, yes. I’m going to be engaged longer than that. 
I think. Miss Mercer, that sleeve is a little tight.” 

There was something in the girl’s tone which stopped 
the dressmaker’s babbling at the fountain-head. “ My 
dear,” she remarked to her sister, half an hour later, 
when Joan had departed, “ there’s a mystery there. 
Blazing diamonds, as big as marrowfat peas — loads of 

263 


LITTLE JOAN 


them on both her hands. He was here the other day 
with her — you remember Mr. Mainwaring, young, good- 
looking, big, with a devil-may-care way with him ? 
Everything you would think could possibly attract a 
girl. She doesn’t care two pins for him, Jemima. No, 
she says, quite sharp-like, ‘ I’m going to have a long 
engagement.’ Not the least interested in Miss 
Brookes’s things. Didn’t ask a single question. I 
showed her that beautiful pastel blue crepe de chine 
dress we are making oflf the Worth’s model. Not the 
least interested — said she thought it looked drabby. 
The pastel blue, mark you, Jemima!” 

“ And I don’t know that I don’t think her right,” 
said Jemima, coolly. Miss Delamere has very good 
taste in dress; you have always said as much yourself, 
Janie.” 

Meantime, Joan was walking quietly down the street 
in the direction of home. As she turned the corner 
leading into St. Thomas’s Street, Moresby, who hap- 
pened to be standing in one of the windows of the club, 
caught sight of her and promptly gave chase. 

“ I had no idea you were coming to town this morn- 
ing, Joan,” he said, as he joined her. I was just coming 
up to ask you to give me some lunch.” 

“ Oh, certainly,” said Joan. “ I don’t call this coming 
to town. I have only been to the dressmaker’s.” 

Oh, I see.” 

They walked down the whole length of St. Thomas’s 
Street, I need hardly say the observed of all observers. 

264 


PLENTY OF TIME 


Once or twice he drew her attention to something in a 
window as they passed, and when they reached the big 
jeweller’s shop he would fain have gone in and spent some 
money upon her. But Joan was firm. 

“ Don’t buy me anything to-day,” she said, almost 
vexedly, as they turned away from the window. I 
have more things than I can wear.” 

'' Dear little girl,” said he, “ you don’t know the pleas- 
ure it is to be able to buy you things.” 

‘‘Well,” said Joan, “you will have the particular 
pleasure of providing me with everything for the rest of 
my life. You’ll very soon find that pleasure wear out.” 

It was the first time since their engagement that she 
had voluntarily spoken of the future, and Moresby felt 
a glow at his heart in consequence. As they reached 
the end of the street, he suggested that they should go 
home by way of the river, and as Joan straightway 
acquiesced they turned aside from the crowded high- 
way into the greater seclusion of the almost deserted 
walk. It was there that Moresby told her that he had 
seen her father, that all business matters would be satis- 
factorily arranged within a few weeks, and that so far 
as such things were concerned the way was now clear 
for them to be married as soon as they chose. -The girl 
said nothing until he had, in quite a glow of imagination, 
drawn a picture of the good time that they were going 
to have together. As they reached the lower gate of 
the Riverside garden, he drew her into what had once 
been their favourite haunt. 

265 


LITTLE JOAN 


Come in here, little girl,” he said, where you and 
I used to spend so much of our time when life was all 
hopeless, the future all black and dreary, when there 
didn’t seem to be a ray of sunlight from one end of life 
to the other. And here, where we loved each other in 
spite of everything, tell me that you love me still and 
that you will give yourself to me before many weeks 
are gone by.” 

In a sense he had always found her difficult, he had 
always noticed that Joan would not be bidden to take 
any one course. 

If you really feel sure,” she said, looking straight 
up at him and making no declaration of her own feel- 
ings, if you really feel ‘quite sure that you want me, 
and you will be happier for having me for your wife, 
then, Ozzie, we can be married as soon as you like.” 


266 


CHAPTER XXXIII 


David Molyneux 

B ut even then the way was not quite clear for the 
marriage of Lord Moresby and little Joan. There 
was yet another person to reckon with — Joan’s father. 
During the whole of that day a conviction had steadily 
borne itself in upon his mind that there was, as his first 
expression had put it, a screw loose with little Joan. By 
the time he arrived home — half an hour or so before 
dinner — the conviction had become confirmed. Joan’s 
wan and strained appearance when they met at the 
dinner-table was enough to convince him that, whatever 
course he took, he must be firm in one particular, which 
was that Joan should have ample time in which to re- 
flect upon the seriousness of the step which she was 
thinking of taking. 

It happened that night that Lord Moresby had gone 
to dine at the cavalry mess, and so indeed had Sir Rob- 
ert Masters. Willy Delamere was going with Agnes 
and Violet to a small dance a few doors away. Joan, 
having declined the invitation, remained alone with her 
father. 

“Would you like to play a game of cribbage, dear?” 
she asked, when the young people had departed. 

“ Yes, I should rather,” he returned. 

267 


LITTLE JOAN 


So Joan got out the table and the cards, and adjusted 
a movable electric lamp, so that her father could play 
his evening game in comfort. 

“ By the bye,'* said he, presently, between the deals, 
“ Moresby came in to see me this morning.^' 

H’m ?” Her tone showed that she heard ; it be- 
trayed no curiosity or desire for further information. 

He seems to think he can get settled up in next to 
no time now,” Mr. Delamere went on. He wants to 
be married in a few weeks.” 

“ You think the affairs will get settled?” 

No, not so soon as that. Lawyers never hurry 
themselves, not even for other lawyers. Why should 
they? At all events, they never do and never will. 
Will you be very disappointed if things cannot be ar- 
ranged as soon as he hopes?” 

“ No,” said Joan, “ I am in no hurry.” 

'' He is,” said Mr. Delamere. 

“ Yes, Ozzie is. I suppose it’s natural,” Joan replied, 
dealing the cards with great care. “ Your cut, Dad — 
two for his heels.” 

“Yes, it’s a perfectly natural thing that Moresby 
should be in a hurry, and it’s an equally natural thing 
that I should object to any hurry which will allow you to 
be married without due care being taken of your future. 
You won’t think me hard or anything of that kind, but 
this settlement must be made before you will be married 
with my consent?” 

“ I shall never think you anything that’s not dear 
268 


DAVID MOLYNEUX 


and good and true, Daddy,” said Joan, quietly. ‘'And 
if Ozzie's lawyers don’t get through, well Ozzie must 
wait a little while, that’s all.” 

And then they went on playing the game, and Mr. 
Delamere knew that he had struck the right note, that 
there was a screw loose, and that for some inexplicable 
reason Joan was not as keen on the marriage as her 
iiance was. And so they played the homely game for 
all it was worth, and not again did they mention the 
subject upon which he had so lightly touched. 

Meantime, Willy and the two girls had arrived at the 
house where the dance was being given. It was a 
pleasant house, a little further out of the town than 
Riverside. The hostess was a young married woman 
whose husband was second in command of the cavalry 
regiment then occupying the barracks, and naturally 
enough the Colonel, with the officers and other guests, 
arrived a little after ten o’clock, having, indeed, made 
a move as soon as dinner was over. 

Now, it happened that among the first of the dinner 
guests to appear was Sir Robert Masters, who straight- 
way made for Agnes Delamere and asked her to honour 
him with a dance. All the Delameres danced to per- 
fection — it was quite a gift of the family in all its 
branches. 

“Where’s your sister?” he asked. 

“ Oh, Joan hasn’t come.” 

“ But why?” 

“ I don’t know. She doesn’t care very much for 
269 


LITTLE JOAN 


dancing, you know. At all events, she wouldn’t come 
with us to-night. I left her playing cribbage with my 
father.” 

“ Oh. What will Moresby say to that, I wonder ?” 

“ I don’t know. There he is !” said Agnes. And 
indeed at that very moment Lord Moresby’s handsome 
face was to be seen in the doorway. He looked round 
here and there, evidently on the search for some particu- 
lar person. Then he, too, came across the room 
towards them, but on the way he stopped, and they saw 
him speak to Violet, who answered with a laugh and a 
nod. 

Then he came on to Agnes. “You’ll give me a cou- 
ple of dances, of course,” he remarked, as he reached 
her side. 

“ Oh, yes, certainly.” 

He marked her programme, and then, looking round, 
said : “ By the bye, where’s Joan ?” 

“ Joan hasn’t come.” 

“Really? She’s not ill?” 

“Oh, no. Didn’t you know she wasn’t coming?” 

“ No.” 

“ Oh,” said Agnes, rather taken aback, “ I don’t think 
she had any intention of coming.” 

“ Well, to tell you the truth,” said he, “ we never men- 
tioned the dance one way or another.” 

Then the music began, and the next moment Sir Rob- 
ert and Agnes floated away together. 

“ By the bye. Miss Agnes,” said Sir Robert, “ there’s 
270 


DAVID MOLYNEUX 


a man here who is awfully anxious to be introduced to 
you.” 

Introduce him, then,” said Agnes, — “ that is, if he is 
all right.” 

So Robert Masters turned round and nodded to a 
young man who was standing a yard or two away. “ Let 
me introducce Mr. Molyneux, Miss Delamere — Miss 
Agnes Delamere,” he said, turning to the young man. 

Then Mr. Molyneux, who was a long and lithe young 
man in uniform, brought his hells together with a click 
and made Agnes a very deferential bow. In an equally 
deferential way he asked if he might have the honour 
of a dance, and Agnes, with one glance into his cool 
grey eyes, replied that he might certainly ; whereupon 
Mr. Molyneux immediately helped himself to two. He 
was young, with killing grey eyes and a debonnair man- 
ner, not exactly good-looking. The face was swarthy, 
the hair very black and close-cropped. He danced to 
perfection, an accomplishment not always to be found 
in wearers of uniform, and before a quarter of an hour 
had gone by he had persuaded Agnes to discard her 
programme and to give him all the dances that were 
left. 

Why,” he argued, when she had made some small 
pretence of demurring to this arrangement, why, when 
two people meet and they find their steps suit like — 
like — oh, twin halves of a soul, don’t you know, or — 
er — a broken sixpence, or — er — or any of the other 
tests of that kind, they should go and bore themselves 

271 


LITTLE JOAN 


by dancing with other people, whom the man has to 
lug round or whom the girl has to provide ball-room 
for, is beyond me. Now, that chap you were dancing 
with last — I mean when I was watching you just now, 
a little blonde chap — every turn he took he trod on your 
toes.’’ 

“ Yes, he did,” said Agnes, ruefully. 

“ And alternated with that every other step he took 
he kind of pinched you with his knee. You looked the 
picture of abject misery.” 

“ Did I?” 

“ Oh, you did. And he was such an ass that he hadn’t 
the least idea that he wasn’t absolutely acceptable to 
you. But really, I beg your pardon — he may have been 
your brother for anything I know.” 

Well, he is not my brother, as a matter of fact.” 

“ Still worse, he might be your fiance” said Mr. Moly- 
neux, with a fine air of bringing it out at last. “ I apolo- 
gize. I — I made a great slip. I really apologize.” 

“ All right,” said Agnes. “ You needn’t apologize 
any more, thank you. I never saw the creature before 
to-night, and he was one of the most martyr-making 
persons I ever came across.” 

A martyr-making person ? That’s a good phrase,” 
said Molyneux. “ There, there, it has come to an end ! 
All good things do. Come and have an ice. Miss Dela- 
mere.” 

Well, the result of that evening was that the follow- 
ing afternoon saw Mr. David Molyneux comfortably 
272 


DAVID MOLYNEUX 


ensconced in the most comfortable cosy-corner of the 
Riverside drawing-room. From the beginning he was 
quite at home and friendly, called the girls Miss Joan,’^ 
“ Miss Violet,” and Miss Agnes,” and after an in- 
credibly short time remarked that it seemed a waste 
of time and friendship to submit to ordinary conventions 
and formalities, and added that people who knew him 
for a week always called him David, and that they might 
as well begin as they would certainly end. Having in- 
timated this much, he forgot to give Agnes any prefix 
to her name, apologised profusely, and called her Agnes 
from that moment. 

I don’t know that at any ordinary time his unabashed 
impudence would have gone down with the family at 
Riverside, but the gloom upon the house, owing to the 
tragedy that was in process of happening, was so heavy 
that this gay and light-hearted subaltern came like a 
veritable ray of sunshine and was welcomed accordingly. 
It transpired that he was a young man of many accom- 
plishments — the finest steeplechase rider in his regi- 
ment, owed two at St. Andrews for golf, was a particu- 
lar hand at fly-making and at fly-throwing, could play 
on a penny whistle, and could vamp an accompaniment 
on the piano to any song in any key. He had also 
several minor accomplishments, including a queer col- 
lection of stories, a set of French picture puzzles, several 
ingenious tricks performed by the aid of a box of 
matches, and he could imitate all sorts of weird sounds 
with no other aid than his mouth and his fingers. 

i8 


273 


LITTLE JOAN 


A most entertaining person/’ said Violet to the gen- 
eral company, when he had at last reluctantly betaken 
himself away after having invited himself to come again 
in the most open-hearted and artless manner, a most 
entertaining person.” 

“ You find him so?” said Moresby. 

It was the first time that Moresby had ever spoken to 
one of the Delameres in that tone. 

“ Yes, I do, Ozzie,” said Violet in a tone of absolute 
severity. “ I find him most entertaining. I suppose he 
isn’t worth twopence — men who are amusing never are. 
There was a day, my dear hoy, when you were the most 
enlivening creature that one ever looked out for like 
Sister Anne from her watch-tower.” 

'' I hope you never looked out for me like that,” said 
Moresby, with almost a sneer. 

“ Never — at least, we did once, or something like it 
in the old days when you were poor and nice. But now 
if any Sister Anne at Riverside looks out for you, it will 
be much more like the Sister Anne of tradition looking 
out for ” 

Thank you,” said Moresby, pointedly. 


274 


CHAPTER XXXIV 


A Dumping-Ground 
HIS house,” said Lord Moresby, a week later 



X than the little dance at which David Molyneux 
was introduced into the Delamere family, this house 
seems to me to be the dumping-ground for all the idle 
young men in Christendom.” 

His tone was one of intensest annoyance, and was in 
answer to a remark made by Joan Delamere that an 
imperative summons at the door which was sounded 
through the house at that moment was David Moly- 
neux’s knock. As a matter of fact, it was not that esti- 
mable and shameless young man, who had long ago 
given up knocking at the door of Riverside and turned 
the handle, explaining to the faithful William that he 
hated giving unnecessary trouble, a remark which 
caused that worthy and punctilious servant to precede 
the young gentleman to the drawing-room with a broad 
grin on his respectable countenance. No, it was not 
gay and debonnair David Molyneux who was at that 
moment battering at the principal entrance of Riverside, 
it was that old friend of the family, Mrs. Perkyns, ac- 
companied by a maiden sister of uncertain age. 

It was the faithful William who broke the news to 
Joan as she sat in a corner of the big sofa in the morn- 


LITTLE JOAN 

ing-room. Mrs. Perkyns, Miss Joan. In the drawing- 
room.” 

'Ms anybody there, William?” asked Joan. 

" No, Miss Joan.” 

" Are the young ladies in ?” 

“ They are in. Miss Joan,” said William, with a slight 
emphasis on the word which indicated that they were 
not out, “ but they don’t seem much inclined to go into 
the drawing-room.” 

" Oh,” said Joan in a comprehensive tone. " Is any- 
body with them ?” 

“Yes, Miss Joan, there are two or three young gen- 
tlemen in the library. Miss Violet recommended me to 
say that I had made a mistake, and that nobody was at 
home.” 

“ Oh, William ! Not for the world. Pll go. Let’s 
have tea at once.” 

“ Why should you be sacrificed ?” said Moresby, as 
the door closed behind the servant. 

“Well, why shouldn’t I? They’ve got their boys 
there, and they are happy and enjoying themselves, and 
young.” 

“ You are happy, you are enjoying yourself, you are 
young — or you ought to be,” said he, vexedly, for he 
was beginning to feel that some strange wall of ice had 
imperceptibly arisen between him and her. 

“ Oh, it’s not that. I see so much of you — we are 
legitimately left alone because of our engagement to 
one another — and you know what a bore Mrs. Perkyns 

276 


A DUMPING-GROUND 


is. She was very fond of poor mother, and mother 
couldn’t bear her, but she was so kind-hearted she never 
would let her know it.” 

Oh, your mother was too good a saint to live,” said 
Moresby, and you are reaping the benefit of it, my 
dear.” 

“ I shan’t reap the benefit of it very long,” said Joan. 
“ I shall be going away after a little while, and then 
Agnes, poor child, will have to put up with Mrs. Per- 
kyns all the rest of her life, unless she happens to marry 
out of Blankhampton.” 

“ Well, if she marries Masters, she won’t, of course, 
be in Blankhampton.” 

‘‘You think she will?” said Joan, as she crossed the 
room. 

“ I think it is not unlikely. Everybody seems to expect 

it. He’s always hanging about the place ; they seem as 
thick as thieves.” 

“ Will you come with me, or will you come in pres- 
ently?” said Joan, as she laid her hand upon the handle 
of the door. 

“ If you don’t mind. I’ll stay here and have a cigar- 
ette. I can’t stand that old woman. She so common, 
so pushing, so inquisitive.” 

“ Won’t you go to the others?” 

“ No, Pd rather stay here alone, if you don’t mind.” 

So Moresby, after he had closed the door behind his 
■fiancee, went back to the big sofa and sat down to smoke 
in peace, while Joan, ever the one of the Delamere 

277 


LITTLE JOAN 


household to be sacrificed in the cause of others, went 
with a sigh and something like a choke in her throat 
to face the ordeal of giving tea to Mrs. Perkyns. It 
was with a throb of absolute relief that she saw the 
maiden sister. 

“ How do you do, Mrs. Perkyns ? And how are you. 
Miss Maria? When did you come to Blankhampton ?” 

“ Maria has been here three days,” said Mrs. Per- 
kyns. “ I should like her to come and live with me 
altogether. It would be great companionship for me, 
and would relieve me of a great deal of the necessary 
chaperonage of my daughters ; but Maria is extremely 
obstinate — she prefers what she chooses to call her 
liberty.” 

“ My dear Joan,” said Miss Maria, I have had a very 
hard life, because I was the only one left in the home 
nest to attend on a very aged and ailing mother. I did 
my duty to my mother to the last moment of her life. 
I sacrificed my whole girlhood, I never went to a dance, 
I never had any gaiety; I spent my days in very slow 
drives, dawdling walks, small home-conducted charities, 
and I ruined my voice by reading aloud. I kept up a 
correspondence with all the members of an extremely 
large family — and all very good correspondents — and 
I entirely managed the servants and the household. 
Now that dear mother has been called to a higher 
sphere, I am going to live my own life in my own 
way.” 

I think you are very wise,” said Joan. '' And after 
278 


A DUMPING-GROUND 


a little time very likely you will make up your mind 
to marry somebody.” 

“ If I meet somebody who wants to marry me — which 
at my time of life isn’t very probable,” said Miss 
Maria, “ I shall certainly marry him. I shall not con- 
sider the claims of my many nieces and nephews, and 
I shall not consider the wishes of my sisters, who one 
and all want me to continue the life of slavery in which 
my days have hjtherto been passed. I have eight hun- 
dred a year, I have a house that I am extremely fond 
of, the society around is pleasant and neighbourly, and 
I don’t care a dump for anybody. I admit, Charlotte 
dear, that it is hard upon you to feel that you have got 
a sister who ought to be your slave, but — I’m going to 
retain my liberty.” 

I think you are very wise. Miss Maria,” said Joan. 

‘‘Do you indeed, Joan?” said Mrs. Perkyns. “Well, 
if all we hear be true, my dear girl, you are not too com- 
petent to arrange the lives of other people.” 

“ I don’t understand you, Mrs. Perkyns,” said Joan. 
She was thoroughly taken aback by the onslaught, and 
a faint pink colour, which was the signal-flag of resent- 
ment, rose up in her olive cheeks. 

“ It’s against nature,” said Mrs. Perkyns, “ for a girl 
who is engaged to a nobleman — young, good-looking, 
rich, and obviously devoted — to have a year’s engage- 
ment.” 

“ I quite agree with you.” said Joan. 

“ Eh ?” It was then Mrs. Perkyns’s place to feel 
279 


LITTLE JOAN 


somewhat taken aback. “ Then, why are you having 
it?” she added, all in a hurry. 

“ I was not aware that I was having it, Mrs. Per- 
kyns,” said Joan, quite sweetly. “ I am going to be mar- 
ried almost immediately.” 

“ Oh, that’s a horse of another colour. There, now, 
Maria, that only shows what vile gossips there are in 
Blankhampton. I never knew such a place in my life ; 
gossip is a thing that I never, indulge in. I heard it 
two days ago, and I took the first opportunity of coming 
and telling you direct, my dear, what I thought of it. 
You are going to be married at once?” 

“ Very shortly,” said Joan. 

“ I am glad of that. I never like to hear of engage- 
ments hanging fire. People in the town seem to think 
that you are only getting married because you don’t 
like to let a good match go by. I knew you were not 
the girl to marry from any such feeling as that, but 
you know Blankhampton people are very ill-natured, 
my dear, very ill-natured indeed.” 

It was on the very tip of Joan’s tongue to say that 
greater ill-nature than Mrs. Perkyns’s own had never 
been found within the walls of the old city, but she reso- 
lutely choked it down and replied peaceably enough. 

“ Oh, I don’t know that people are so ill-natured,” 
she said, ‘‘ and it’s natural to take an interest in one’s 
neighbours’ affairs. I know I do. The most disagree- 
able person I ever knew in my life was a lady who 
prided herself on never saying a word against anyone, 

280 


A DUMPING-GROUND 


and of always talking of things rather than of people — 
weary, weary, weary,'' she said, with a laugh. '' How- 
ever, we've talked enough of my poor affairs. You’ll 
have an invitation to my wedding before long, Mrs. 
Perkyns — you shall have one of the first.” 

“ That’s where I think you so sensible, Joan,” said 
Miss Maria. '' You've got a mind above all this petti- 
fogging backbiting. That’s where the world makes such 
a mistake. I always tell you so, Charlotte — neighbourly 
interest is one thing, picking holes is another. I always 
did think you a dab at picking holes, Charlotte.” 

Really, Maria!” said Mrs. Perkyns. The good 
lady's face was flaming, but Maria, secure in her in- 
come of eight hundred a year and never a soul to say 
her nay, had no notion of being put in the background 
by her older and very matronly sister. 

“ I quite thought when poor mother died,” Miss 
Maria went on, “ that I should stay all my life in Little 
Besborough, but everybody — both those who belonged 
to me and those who didn’t — seemed to think that 
although I had managed everything for fifteen years, I 
was absolutely incapable of buying a yard of stuff, or 
even ordering my dinner, without outside help. So I 
took myself out of Little Besborough, and thankful I 
have been from that day to this. In London,” she went 
on, “ nobody seems to think it is at all a wonderful 
thing that I should live in a house by myself ; nobody 
seems to think it is an outrage when I want to go to a 
theatre, and I am quite sure nobody keeps count of 
281 


LITTLE JOAN 


how many bottles of beer and how many bottles of 
whiskey we use in a month. By the bye, I see you have 
got William still.” 

“ Oh, William will stay with us as long as he lives, 
of course,” said Joan. ^^We are all quite devoted to 
William, and William is quite devoted to us.” 

“ I don’t believe in the devotion of servants,” re- 
marked Mrs. Perkyns, with a lofty air. ‘‘ It’s against 
nature. Every single human being in the world has an 
instinct of serving his own ends — why should servants 
be any exception to the general rule ?” 

“ I don’t know why they should,” said Joan, but I 
am quite sure that William has very little thought of 
self beyond the legitimate attention which every human 
being ought, and does, pay to his own personality. And 
William has been with us so long, Mrs. Perkyns, that 
when we find out anything against him, I shall certainly 
begin to distrust my own father.” 

“ Many a girl has had good cause to do that,” said 
Mrs. Perkyns in a portentious tone. No, my dear, 
I’m not saying a word against your father — Robert 
Delamere is much too old a friend of mine, and I have 
much too strong a friendly feeling for him, but girls 
have found out before to-day that their fathers are not 
everything that the whole world can desire, or that 
daughters can believe in.” 

“ Don’t croak, Charlotte,” said Miss Maria. 


282 


CHAPTER XXXV 


A Seal 

“ T THOUGHT,” said Moresby to Joan, when she 

X went back to the morning-room, “ I thought that 
old woman was never going. I can’t imagine why you 
tolerate such a nuisance. ’Pon my word, I was strongly 
tempted to come and rout you out and show her to the 
door.” 

“ It was just as well that you didn’t,” said Joan, smiling 
up at him. “ Mrs. Perkyns is a woman with an all-see- 
ing eye. Nothing escapes her. She was perfectly 
aware that you were somewhere concealed in the house, 
and she determined to stay you out. I believe nothing 
but the pangs of hunger really drove her away at last, 
and the remembrance of what Mr. Perkyns would say 
if she were so late that his dinner was spoilt.” 

'' Good old Perkyns !” said Moresby. “ Why do you 
tolerate such a woman?” 

“ Oh, I’ve told you, Ozzie — I’ve told you. She is an 
old friend. We are a patient family, we Delameres. 
We put up with all sorts of nuisances rather than dig 
them out by the roots and make a great ugly gap that 
nothing can ever bridge over. It’s like having a little 
mild toothache now and again — it’s a nuisance while it 
lasts, just a grumble, nothing worse, but it would be 

283 


LITTLE JOAN 


an awful wrench to have the tooth taken out. We feel 
like that with regard to Mrs. Perkyns. It would vex 
father — he has had enough to bear. We don’t want 
to do anything that will vex him, and poor Mrs. Per- 
kyns is comparatively harmless.” 

“ I suppose she is. I call her an unmitigated nui- 
sance myself. However, you and your family must ar- 
range your own affairs. I hope you will not think it 
necessary to invite her to pay us a visit long after we 
are married?” 

“ Oh, Ozzie, how can you be so silly ! The real truth 
was she came in your interest.” 

“ Mine?” 

“ Yes, yours. She came to tell me that she con- 
sidered I was an arrant fool to wait a year to be mar- 
ried.” 

“ Gad ! there’s sense in the old woman, after all. 
Oh, I’ll take back what I said — I’ll take it all back. 
She must be a good old sort. How sensible of her! 
And what did you say?” 

I told her I wasn’t going to have a long engage- 
ment, that we were going to be married immediately, 
and that she should have an invitation to the wedding.” 

They were both standing on the hearthrug, and 
Moresby bent down from his greater height and kissed 
her just as he had been used to do in the old days when 
they first loved each other. 

“ You needn’t look at the clock,” he said. “ Come 
and sit down here and let us have ten minutes’ talk 

284 


A SEAL 


together. I have been so miserable these last few 
weeks.” 

^^Oh, Ozzie!” 

“ I have. Somehow nothing has been the same ; we 
have never seemed to be together as we used to be — 
at one with each other. I have felt, right down to this 
very afternoon, down to the very moment that old 
lady was announced, that there was a great wall of ice 
which had slowly risen up between us and would never, 
never, never melt, and that you and I would go down 
the long years with always that imperceptible something 
parting us. You have no idea how miserable I have 
been. But now you look like yourself, like the little 
girl that I fell in love with when I came to Billy Blake’s 
wedding. You won’t let that wall rise up again, will 
you ?” 

He drew her down on to the wide sofa as he spoke, 
himself leaning back a little against the luxurious cush- 
ions. But Joan sat bolt upright, some words of his 
beating to and fro in her brain, some self-reproach, some 
keen desire still gnawing at her heart. A sudden wave 
of compunction came over her, a feeling took posses- 
sion of her that she would tell him the whole truth and 
leave it to his sense of honour to do what he thought 
best for them both. 

Then she heard voices in the hall — the cool, audacious 
tones of David Molyneux, Violet’s gay, giggling laugh, 
a quick protest from Agnes, and immediately a rejoin- 
der from Sir Robert Masters. And in that instant the 

285 


LITTLE JOAN 


impulse passed. No, come what might, she would keep 
her secret. She had, it is true, turned from the man 
who had loved her so well and so faithfully to one who, 
in a few short weeks, had easily and without effort, 
transferred his affections from her to her sister. To 
tell would be to ruin everything. No, she would go 
through with it ; she would try to bring herself back 
to the old feeling that she used to have for Ozzie Main- 
waring. And then, moved by a sudden impulse, she 
turned towards him, and, bending, kissed him as she 
had never done in all her life before. It was a seal at 
once of renunciation and of resolve. 

They were a strangely altered pair when they went 
up the stairs together obedient to the message of the 
dressing-bell. He stopped at the door of her bedroom 
and put his hand under her chin. 

“ Go and make yourself look lovely,” he said, in his 
fondest tones, and when you look in the glass remem- 
ber that you have made me the happiest man on God’s 
earth this day. I have been like a bear with a sore head 
for days past. What an idiot I am ! I don’t know what 
there can be in me for you to care for at all.” 

“ Go and make yourself beautiful,” said Joan, with a 
little air of coquetry which carried him back to those 
bygone lovely days when they had spent so much 
time in the summer-house near the terrace wall, “ and 
remember that you are not the only person in the 
world. Remember that other girls like other men, 
and other men like other girls than just you and I.” 

286 


A SEAL 


Then she whisked into her room and shut the door 
quickly. 

Now, what the devil did she mean by that?” said 
Moresby to himself. “ ^ Other girls like other men, 
and other men like other girls than just you and I.’ 
Well, it doesn’t matter what she meant. She loves me 
— that is the one great thing of all.” 

Meantime, Joan had walked straight across her bed- 
room to the toilet-table, and there she stood looking at 
herself fixedly. You have made a mistake, Joan Dela- 
mere,” she said, looking sternly at her own reflection, 
and now you have got only one course open to you 
from now to the end of your life. You have got to live 
so as to cover that mistake up, to forget that you have 
made it. It won’t be easy — it’s always difficult to live 
a lie, and in a sense it’s a lie that you are going to 
live. Still, if you have any pride, Joan, if you have 
any pity, you will live that lie so that in time you’ll come 
to believe in it yourself. Is that you. Bright ? Am I 
late?” 

No, Miss Joan. I put you out the little black dress. 
Will you wear it?” 

No, not the black one to-night. I’ll wear the white 
crepe de chine. Sometimes, Bright, one feels like wear- 
ing the blackest black that one has got in one’s ward- 
robe, and at others one wants to wear something bright, 
something gay and gaudy. To-night I feel that only 
the purest of pure white will be in keeping with my 
feelings.” 


287 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ That’s good, Miss Joan. You couldn’t do better. 
You look bright enough.” 

'' I’m glad of it. My looks never pity me,” said 
Joan. 

"‘You wouldn’t want them to. Miss?” 

“ No, no. Bright, certainly not. I should like to look 
well to the end. Indeed, I don’t know that I wouldn’t 
like to be like that fine lady in the poem, who said : 

“ ‘ One wouldn’t sure look frightful when one’s dead, 

Here, Betty, give this cheek a little red.’ ” 

“ Oh, Miss Joan, what a horrid idea !” exclaimed the 

girl. 

Yes, it is. But then, poor thing, she wouldn’t be 
there to know whether they carried out her instructions 
or not.” 

Her simple toilet was quickly made, and she was deep 
buried in a book when Moresby went down to the 
drawing-room. The two girls followed hard upon his 
heels, but he sat himself down beside Joan with the 
assured air of her future husband. 

“ What are you reading, Joan?” he asked. 

'' I’m reading ‘ Vanity Fair.’ ” 

“ What!” 

“ Oh, I’ve read it before,” she said, answering the 
implied astonishment and reproach in his glance ; I’ve 
read it before several times, but I never read it with 
such understanding as I do now.” 

288 


A SEAL 


'' What do you understand from it ?’’ 

''Well, for one thing, I understand that Thackeray, 
great master as he was, had only one idea of colour, and 
that was pink. The girls had pink cheeks, they wore 
pink bonnets, they looked sweet in little pink frocks, 
they carried bunches of pink roses ; Amelia wore pink 
ribbons, the men had pink ties — pink, pink, pink, it’s 
the dominant note of the story.” 

" Now, I never noticed that,” said he. 

" No, perhaps you wouldn’t,” said Joan, while Agnes 
from her standing-place on the other side of the hearth 
shot a glance at him, as much as to say, " Man alive, 
do you think that all wisdom and all erudition are com- 
bined in you!” And little Violet intercepted the look, 
and interpreting it at about its right value, laughed out- 
right. 

" What are you laughing at ?” said Moresby. 

" Oh, thoughts. I often laugh at my thoughts.” 

" Indeed, that’s a cheap amusement.” 

" Sometimes not so cheap, Ozzie ; and sometimes it’s 
just as well that I keep my thoughts to myself.” 

" I think,” said Moresby, deliberately, " that you keep 
your best thoughts for a certain young gentleman who 
is here a good deal.” 

" Do you ? Ah, you follow my example, Ozzie — keep 
your thoughts to yourself. It’s a grand plan.” 

And then the dinner-gong boomed forth, and Mr. 
Delamere came quietly in, followed by Willy, who had 
dressed in a rush and now came hurrying in with a word 
19 289 


LITTLE JOAN 

of apology on his lips which he quickly turned into a 
breath of relief. 

It was very late that evening when Robert Delamere 
said good-night to his children. “ Joan/’ he said, put- 
ting his arm round her and drawing her close to him, 
“ I have had it on my mind for days past to ask you a 
question.” 

“Dear Daddy, why didn’t you ask it?” said Joan. 

“ Perhaps a little because I was afraid of hurting 
your feelings. I dislike people myself, as you know, 
dearest, who harrow up your feelings for nothing — I 
give them as wide a berth as I can. I shouldn’t like 
any one of you to give me a wide berth on that ac- 
count.” 

“ We never shall,” said Joan. 

“ No, I hope not. I fancied a few days ago that all 
was not well with you; but you look brighter, happier 
to-night.” 

“ I am quite happy, thank you. Daddy.” 

“You are quite satisfied with this marriage?” 

“ Oh, how can you ask me ?” she said. “ Surely I 
should be the most ungrateful girl in the world if I 
were not. I am afraid, dear Daddy,” she said, putting 
her hand up and smoothing his shoulder, “ I’m afraid 
you will soon be bereft of all your little girls. After 
you have been so good, too.” 

“ Well, if you go to good homes, my child, I shall be 
satisfied and content.” 

“You will be very lonely. Daddy, in that case. I — 
290 


A SEAL 


I think you will have another young man coming be- 
fore long/^ 

^^Do you?” 

''Yes — possibly two. And then, dear, if Norah stays 
out there, what will become of you?” 

" Well, we’ll meet that when the time comes,” said 
Mr. Delamere quietly. 


291 


CHAPTER XXXVI 
Somewhat of a Shock to Lord Moresby 


I T is an old saying which runs, Happy is the wooing 
that’s not long a-doing,” and in this old saw David 
Molyneux was a firm believer, for he conducted his 
wooing of Agnes Delamere with such speed that before 
he had known the family three weeks he had broken 
the ice, taken the fatal plunge, and had asked her to 
be his wife. 

I know,” he said in the most humble and apolo- 
getic tones, when he had finally braced himself up to 
take the great step, I know, Aggie darling, that by 
mere days and hours you and I have only known each 
other for some three weeks, but, after all, when you 
come to look at it in the light of common-sense, what 
is time? Compared with the great circle of eternity, 
what are three weeks, or three months, or three years ? 
After all, the great thing with men and women is not 
the time they have known each other, but whether they 
love one another and are likely to love another for 
eternity. Now, I — I adore you, Aggie, and I know you 
adore me.” 

‘‘ Indeed you don’t know anything of the kind,” said 
Agnes, promptly. 

“No, I don’t know it — I admit I don’t know it, but 


292 


A SHOCK TO LORD MORESBY 


I want you to, and — er — you do like me, don’t you? 
you wouldn’t like me to go away and — er — go to the 
dogs, or marry another woman, — now, would you?” 

“ No, I shouldn’t,” said Agnes, honestly. “ But you 
know, David, you are awfully young.” 

I’m not awfully young. I’m twenty-four. I’ve been 
my own master ever since I can remember, and — er — 
I’ve heaps and heaps of money.” 

“ How many times have you been in love before ?” 
asked Agnes. 

“ Never. Give you my word of honour. Such an 
idea never entered my head. Gad ! I should have mar- 
ried long since if I had.” 

“ How do you know ? She might have refused 
you.” 

‘‘ Well, she might, but I don’t think she would.” 

‘‘You conceited creature!” 

“ No, it isn’t conceit ; but I am a nice chap, you know, 
and I shouldn’t dream of asking a girl to marry me 
unless I had a sort of idea she was likely to say yes.” 

“You mean to say you had a sort of idea that I was 
likely to say yes ?” 

“Yes, of course I had. I know you’re awfully fond 
of me. What’s the good of shamming? You’ll tell me 
so to-day or to-morrow or next week. I might just as 
well be honest with you now. We won’t have any beat- 
ing about the bush, will we? My firm opinion is that 
there is nothing in the world like making up your mind 
and then carrying your intention out without the small- 


293 


LITTLE JOAN 


est hesitation or weakhandedness. I can’t stand weak- 
handed people. That’s why I like you so much. You 
are so definite, you know.” 

‘‘Am I definite?” 

“ Oh, awfully definite. And you’re such a darling, 
and you’re so — oh, you’re so honest, and a chap would 
feel so safe with you!” 

“ Sure of that?” 

“Well, I rather think so. You are such a dashed 
honest family, and — er — I like your people, and alto- 
gether it’s — er — just the right thing that we have de- 
cided to marry each other, don’t you think so?” 

It was perhaps one of the quaintest wooings that had 
ever happened since the beginning of time, but Agnes 
liked the inconsequent, rattle-tongued young soldier, 
and he had told her one or two incidents about his boy- 
hood which had somehow made her long to give him a 
new experience of life. 

“ I say,” he said, presently, when they had in a way 
come back to their senses again, “ how will Masters 
take this?” 

“ Masters ? Do you mean Sir Robert ?” 

“ Of course.” 

“ Have you any idea that you are cutting Sir Robert 
out?” 

“ Quite sure of it.” 

“ Oh, how funny ! My dear boy. Sir Robert doesn’t 
care twopence about me. Fm not the attraction to 
Riverside.” 


294 


A SHOCK TO LORD MORESBY 


“ Oh, come now ! Nonsense. Do you mean to say 
it’s little Violet?” 

Not at all.” 

‘‘Not Joan? Not Joan?” 

“ Who else ?” said Agnes. 

“ Well, I thought it was you. Naturally one thinks 
it’s one’s own girl. It’s the most natural thought that 
I could have. H’m. Dear me ! Joan. But what’s the 
good of his hanging about here? Joan’s practically 
fixed up with Moresby — almost as good as married to 
him, in fact.” 

“Yes. Well, it isn’t me. I can’t talk over Joan’s 
affairs, even with you, yet, David. There’s a screw loose 
there ; whether it will ever be made right and tight is 
beyond my power to say. Don’t speak of it, or hint it, 
or look it to anybody.” 

Now, it happened that Moresby had been up to town 
for a week, and on the very afternoon that David Moly- 
neux was busy arranging his future with Agnes Dela- 
mere in the sanctity of the Winter Gardens, he was just 
arriving at Blankhampton Station. He was, of course, 
int^ding to stay at Riverside, and he stopped his cab 
at the door of the club that he might go in and find out 
if there were any letters awaiting him. Just as he came 
out to the cab again he saw Agnes and David Molyneux 
come out of the principal entrance gate of the Winter 
Gardens, which was exactly facing the door of the 
Blankshire’s gentleman’s club. Some things in this 
world are absolutely unmistakable, and the air of a 

295 


LITTLE JOAN 


newly-engaged couple is among them. It came upon 
Moresby with almost a shock when he realized that such 
was the truth. His first feeling was that Agnes had 
shown very little sense in choosing the boy Molyneux of 
the two. 

“ Frothy-headed creature !” his thoughts ran. Fancy 
her being sister to my Joan! Why, it’s incredible! I 
shouldn’t have thought she’d have looked at that young 
chap, although everybody knows he has heaps of 
money.” 

However, as he drove through the streets and drew 
nearer to his haven of rest, the incident passed from his 
mind, and his thoughts were fixed only upon the girl 
he would find at the end of the journey. As for Joan, 
she had schooled herself well. She received Moresby 
and half a dozen presents he had brought for her with 
such an admirable reflection of the past that he was 
more in love with her than ever. 

“ You are too good to me, Ozzie,” she said. Why 
do you waste all this money on me?” 

“ You forget, little girl,” he replied, '' it’s not a waste 
of money — quite the contrary ; it’s good for trade.” 

“ Oh, how horrid of you !” 

“ Well, I shouldn’t have said it if you hadn’t almost 
put the words in my mouth. You must have things 
suitable to your position, and you must have pledges 
of my affection, and I must have some outlet to show 
you how utterly and devotedly I am yours for ever and 
always. I should be a poor sort of a lover if I couldn’t 


296 


A SHOCK TO LORD MORESBY 


bring you a few presents — a few paltry trinkets and 
things of that kind — after being away from you for a 
whole week. Why, Joan, what do you take me for?” 

She tried to say that she took him for what he was — 
the most generous man in all the world, but somehow 
the words would not come, and she was overwhelmed 
by a sense of her own baseness and ingratitude. 

“ Oh, Ozzie,” she said at last, I am not fit for you, 
I am not half good enough for you, I am — you don’t 
know what a poor mean thing I am down at the bot- 
tom.” 

“ Thank you,” said he. “ When you have done 
abusing my future wife, I should like some tea. I shall 
find out your defects quite soon enough, as you will 
find out mine, without our telling them to each other. 
Not another word. Miss Delamere, if you please. If 
it annoys you to have a few trinkets and things, why, 
I won’t bring you any more ; but I never knew or heard 
of a girl in my life before that didn’t like to know that 
her sweetheart had thought of her when he was away 
from her.” 

“ Oh, I do !” cried Joan. It’s only that you are so 
good to me, Ozzie, and I — I’m not able to do anything 
for you. I haven’t much money, and if I had it wouldn’t 
be any good giving you pins and things. Come, I’ll 
give you some tea.” 

In spite of his great love for her, he could not help 
laughing at her distressed face. “ Come, come,” he 
said, “ surely you are distressing yourself most unneces- 

297 


LITTLE JOAN 


sarily. We shall have our ups and downs, I have no 
doubt, and we must bear with each other, but we needn’t 
begin by being ready for the worst — you needn’t begin 
by cutting me off from any expression of my love for 
you, and I certainly don’t want to begin by hearing of 
any faults you may have — if you have them, which I 
stoutly refuse to believe. Come, give me some tea. 
They offered me some at Doncaster, and I refused it 
because I preferred to wait until I could have it from 
your hand.” 

Oh, Ozzie !” she exclaimed. 

She looked right away from him for a moment or so, 
and then she turned and humbly picked up the hand that 
was nearest to her and, before he could prevent her, 
had touched it with her lips. 

He caught hold of her quite fiercely. “Joan,” he 
said, hoarsely, “ don’t do that again !” 

“ Why?” 

“ I don’t like it. It isn’t the attitude I wish you to 
take to me. It isn’t for you to kiss my hand, but for 
me to grovel at your feet from now to the end of our 
lives. It isn’t for you ever to take the inferior place 
where we two are concerned, not for you ever to abase 
yourself to me. It’s dreadful — horrible to me. Please 
never do it again, never as long as you live.” 

For a moment Joan was absolutely frightened. A 
fierce crowd of terrible thoughts came whirling into 
her mind — that she had mistaken this man after all, 
that he was as far above her as the heavens above the 
298 


A SHOCK TO LORD MORESBY 


earth, that if he could see her as she was, with her 
naked soul stripped of all the charm and fascination of 
her personality, he would spurn her as she deserved. 

I didn’t mean it in that way,” she said. “ I wouldn’t 
do anything to vex you for the world. Why should I ? 
You have been very good to me — you always are — and 
you must forgive me. I didn’t mean it in that way 
quite.” 


299 


CHAPTER XXXVII 


“ I Thought ” 

A GNES DELAMERE very demurely kept her own 
counsel as to what had happened that afternoon in 
the Winter Garden, and the first of the family to hear of 
it was when David Molyneux walked into Mr. Dela- 
mere’s office the following afternoon and communicated 
the important event to him. 

‘‘Well,” said Mr. Delamere, with an easy laugh, “I 
won’t say I am exactly surprised, though I didn’t know 
which of them it was; but I knew, of course, that you 
didn’t come to Riverside to see me. So you want to 
marry Aggie, do you?” 

“ I do,” said David Molyneux. “ And, what is much 
more important, Agnes wants to marry me, strange as 
it may seem.” 

“Yes, you young people all go the same way, and a 
very good way it is. I never knew a day’s happiness till 
I was married myself, and I’ve never known a day’s 
perfect happiness since my wife was taken away from 
me. What I shall do when the last of my little girls 
is appropriated I don’t like to think, and the worst of 
it is they all go away from the old place. I don’t won- 
der at it; there is a romance about change of venue, 
and they have known all the boys in the town too 
long.” 

300 


‘‘I THOUGHT ’’ 

‘‘Well, sir, perhaps you’ll get married again your- 
self,” said David, whose thoughts naturally ran to that 
as the easiest way out of the difficulty. 

“ Get married again, eh ? The idea never presented 
itself to me. I don’t think I shall do that. However, 
I’ve still got a little breathing space before little Violet 
will be asked for. Of course, you want to be married 
at once? Oh, I know. Well, I think I must ask you 
to wait a reasonable time. You see, we haven’t known 
you very long.” 

“ Not very long, Mr. Delamere. Don’t keep us wait- 
ing too long. A long engagement is an awfully wear- 
ing thing to everybody concerned.” 

“ How do you know ?” 

“ W ell, honestly I don’t know — not from personal 
experience,” said David, promptly, and yet very mod- 
estly ; “ but I had an aunt who was engaged seven and 
a half years, and I have heard her say that three months 
is the outside time that anybody ought to be engaged.” 

“ Ah. Should you consider three months an outside 
time?” 

“ Well, I think it’s long enough.” 

“Oh, you do? Well, we’ll talk of that another day. 
You don’t want to get the wedding-day fixed up just 
yet, I suppose? At least, if you do, I must ask you to 
wait a while and see how you get on together. I suppose 
you can keep Aggie as she has been accustomed to be 
kept?” 

“ Oh, Fve plenty of money,” said the young man, 


301 


LITTLE JOAN 


simply, yet in a tone which carried conviction with it, 
“ I’ve plenty of money. I thought if I gave you the 
names of my solicitors they could arrange everything 
about settlements and that kind of thing. Then, I may 
take it,” he added, rising, I may take it that it’s — er — 
that we have your consent ?” 

'' Oh, yes. I see nothing to withhold it for.” 

“ Thank you very much indeed, sir,” said David. 

Then, if you’ll excuse me, I won’t detain you any 
longer.” He caught hold of Mr. Delamere’s hand, 
wrung it hard, and the next moment was gone out of 
the room. 

“ Another of them !” said Mr. Delamere. It begins 
to look very much as if I shall be left desolate in my 
old age. Well, I don’t know that unmarried daughters 
in a place like Blankhampton are exactly desirable. 
Marry again. H’m. Well, well, well, we’ll talk about 
that later on.” 

It was not very often that Mr. Delamere’s daughters 
were in the habit of visiting him at the office, — never 
unless there was some fairly urgent reason. That after- 
noon, however, it happened that little Violet arrived in 
Delamere Court with a telegram which had been re- 
ceived at Riverside. She came into the large outer 
office like a sunbeam. 

“ Is my father there?” she inquired of the clerk near- 
est to the door, who happened also to be quite the junior 
one of the establishment. 

“ Yes, Miss Violet — this way.” 


302 


“I THOUGHT ” 

“ Oh, don’t trouble to come if he is alone. I’ll go.” 
She went on towards her father’s room, leaving the 
young man, who was little more than a boy, gazing 
open-mouthed with admiration after her. 

“ May I come in. Daddy?” she asked. 

“Oh, is that you, Violet? Yes, come in,” he an- 
swered. 

“ Here’s a telegram,” said Violet. “ Joan said I’d 
better bring it down to you at once, as it might be im- 
portant.” 

“ Thank you, dear, thank you very much. Yes, it 
is rather important,” he added, just glancing over the 
flimsy sheet of paper. 

“ Yes, Joan thought it would be. Daddy dear, you 
haven’t got a spare sovereign about you, have you ?” 

“ I can give you a couple of sovereigns if you want 
them,” said her father, quietly. 

“ Well, I do want them. You see. I’m — I’ve not been 
very wise in the way I’ve spent my allowance some- 
how.” 

“ Well, my dear child, you can have a little extra 
money, if you want it. Here are three sovereigns. Will 
that do you ?” 

“ Oh, yes, darling. It’s only for gloves and odds and 
ends, but I’ve still got the better part of the month to 
get over. Thank you so much!” She put her arm 
round his neck and kissed him. Mr. Delamere held her 
close to his side for a moment. 

“ I suppose you know the news ?” he said. 

303 


LITTLE JOAN 


News, Daddy dear ? No. What news?” 

^^What! She kept it to herself?” 

Who ? I don’t understand you.” 

"Aggie.” 

“ What about Aggie ?” 

Well, I’ve had a fine strapping young man here this 
afternoon who wants to marry Aggie — says Aggie wants 
to marry him.” 

‘^Sir Robert?” 

“ Sir Robert? No, by no means Sir Robert.” 

David ?” she exclaimed, in questioning tones. 

Yes, that same David. Violet, my dear child, Norah 
will never come home again as Norah Delamere. 
There’s a letter from Eric which has just come, and as 
it was partly on business he addressed it here. He 
says Norah has got a flourishing love-aflfair on, and 
that he has taken my place and given consent for 
me.” 

You don’t mean it! And who’s the man?” 

Oh, he seems to be a rich chap — squatter sort of 
fellow.” 

“Well, I must say,” said Violet, “we are all doing 
very well in the way of money. I think I shall have 
to marry for love, just to show that there is no money- 
grubbing strain in the Delamere family.” 

“ I wouldn’t do that,” said her father, smiling. “ You 
know the advice of the old farmer — ‘ Don’t marry for 
money, but go where money is.’ It’s very sound, shrewd 
advice that. But you are in no hurry, little Violet. 


304 


THOUGHT 

Remember you are all that I have left — or soon will be. 
You mustn’t desert me just yet.” 

Now, it happened that the day was extremely cold, 
with a biting northeast wind, and Violet, when she had 
popped in and out of a couple of shops hied her away 
back home, arriving at Riverside just as William and 
the parlour-maid were taking in the tea. 

She went straight into the morning-room without 
taking off her things. “ Oh, Joan,” she said, I have 
got such news for you !” 

Have you?” 

Yes. Father has had a letter from Eric — it was 
half a business letter, so it went to the office — and 
Norah is engaged.” 

What!” 

“ Yes, Norah’s engaged — somebody very well off — 
and Eric has taken Daddy’s place and given his con- 
sent and everything, and they are going to be married 
at once.” 

What is his name ?” cried Joan. 

I never asked, and Daddy never told me.” 

And Norah has never written home 1 Fancy her 
losing the mail with such news as that. How horrid 
of her!” Joan cried. 

“ Fve got another piece of news for you, too.” 

What’s that?” 

Another engagement.” 

Oh, no!” 

It’s a fact.” 


20 


305 


LITTLE JOAN 


And who is it? Not Eric, surely?” 

“ Oh, no, not Eric. Much nearer home than that.” 

“ You don’t say so ! Who is it?” 

“ It’s Aggie,” said Violet. He’s been there this 
afternoon getting Daddy’s consent — everything is all set- 
tled and arranged for.” 

Joan shut her eyes with an involuntary shiver. So 
the blow had fallen. “Yes?” she said, inquiringly. 
The single word came out with a sharp hiss. “Yes?” 
she repeated. 

“ And if Aggie is married directly,” went on Violet, 
“ of course there will only be me left at home. Just 
think of it — me mistress of Riverside, the sole stay of 
poor Dad and Willy ! Why, it’s too awful !” 

“ And then if you get married, Violet,” said Moresby, 
“ what then?” 

“ I might, you know. There’s never any telling. 
What would Daddy do in that case? He can’t live at 
Riverside by himself, that’s a certainty. Even William 
couldn’t run the house, not without some sort of a 
mistress.” 

“ Perhaps your father will marry again,” said 
Moresby. 

“ Oh, no ! No !” cried the two girls in a breath. 
“ That father never will do — never,” added Joan. “ No, 
we shall have to take it in turns to come and stay a 
month, or two months, with him, all of us, excepting, 
of course, Norah, who, I suppose, will only come home 
for six months at a time once in two or three years.” 

306 


“I THOUGHT ” 


“ But Fm not married yet/’ said Violet, '' and by the 
time Fm married it’s not impossible that Willy may 
have got ideas of that kind. And if Willy marries a 
nice girl, she might as well live here as in a separate 
house.” 

Good little Violet ! That’s a neat idea. I shall take 
the first opportunity of suggesting it to Willy,” said 
Moresby. 

“ Please don’t. He’d think it necessary to get mar- 
ried on the spot, just to meet future possible contin- 
gencies. And then I should have to knuckle under to 
Mrs. Willy — oh, thank you ! Wait till Fm engaged 
before you put any ideas of that kind into Willy’s head, 
if you please. Besides, there’s no great hurry. The regi- 
ment hasn’t been here so very long, and if they stay two 
years Agnes and David may just as well live at Riverside 
as go on their own.” 

“Agnes and who?” cried Joan. 

“ Agnes and David, of course.” 

“ David?” 

“David Molyneux.” 

“ But I thought ” Joan faltered. 

“Good heavens!” exclaimed Moresby. “Do you 
mean to say that she’s taken young Molyneux in pref- 
erence to Robert Masters?” 

“ Agnes is engaged to David Molyneux,” said Violet. 
“ Oh, here they are! Now for it!” 

But it was not the newly-engaged couple ; on the con- 
trary, it was Robert Masters himself who came in, easy 

307 


LITTLE JOAN 

of demeanour as usual, asking if he might be given a 
cup of tea. 

“ Why, of course,” said Joan, making room for him 
on the sofa beside her. “ Have you been hunting to- 
day?” 

“ Yes. It isn’t very satisfactory — ground’s so awfully 
hard, and it’s so cold. I came back quite early, after the 
first kill in fact — not that I know whether there was a 
second. Well, any news?” 

Indeed, there is news,” said Violet. Two of my 
sisters are engaged to be married.” 

‘‘ I knew one was,” said Masters. 

Ah, that makes three. Two more.” 

You don’t say so! And which are they?” asked 
Masters. 

“ Well, the one you don’t know — Norah, in Australia 
— and Agnes.” 

Oh, then Molyneux has pulled it off, has he ?” said 
Masters. “ I thought it wouldn’t be long.” 

Joan looked up at him with almost a gasp, and while 
Violet was volubly explaining to Lord Moresby that it 
was bad for him to take three lumps of sugar in one 
small cup of tea, she ventured to put a question to him 
in an undertone. 

“ Did you expect that she would get engaged to David 
Molyneux?” she asked. 

Of course I did. Anybody could see it might have 
happened any day the last week.” 

I thought,” said Joan, “ I thought — that — that ’’ 

308 


‘‘I THOUGHT 


“ What did you think ?” he said, in the same under- 
tone. 

“ I thought that you ” 

“ I ? Good gracious, what a funny idea ! Did you 
really? Miss Agnes and I are the very best of friends 
— close friends — confidential friends — but she no more 
thought for one instant of marrying me than I ever did 
of marrying her.” 


309 


CHAPTER XXXVIII 

Robert Masters grasps the Truth 

F or a few seconds after Robert Masters declared that 
he had never had any intention of asking Agnes 
to marry him, Joan literally did not speak. Sir Robert, 
who was naturally always more interested in her than 
anyone else who might happen to be in the room, 
turned and looked at her. 

“ Why, Miss Joan, you look quite tragic,” he said, 
speaking slightly under his breath. “ Do you mean to 
say that you had made up your mind to dispose of me 
in that way ? I grant you it would have been convenient, 
but that’s not my nature at all. I wanted the sun ; I 
couldn’t have the sun. To put it plainly, the sun did 
not want me.” 

She looked up involuntarily, and Robert Masters 
looked down at her, and in that moment he realized the 
truth, the whole truth — that the sun did want him, that 
it was some question of honour which had come in 
between them and threatened to part them for now and 
all eternity. He cast a swift glance at the others. Lord 
Moresby was still quarrelling with Violet, and at that 
instant the door opened and Agnes, followed by David 
Molyneux, came into the room, and was at once seized 
upon by Violet and Moresby, who subjected her to a 


310 


MASTERS GRASPS THE TRUTH 


shower of pitiless chaff. You know the kind of scene 
that takes place when a newly-engaged girl first appears 
among her relations with her -fiance? Well, being very 
young, and very happy, and very lucky, and troubled 
with no mistakes, no pasts, nothing to ripple the surface 
of their life’s stream, the prospective bride and groom 
did not try in any way to shirk the inevitable volley of 
good-natured teasing which they found awaiting them. 
And as the fun settled down a little, and attention was 
taken somewhat off the situation by Violet ministering 
to them from the tea-tray, Robert Masters was able to 
speak privately with Joan. 

“ Joan,” he said, in a hoarse whisper, “ I must say 
something to you. Oh, you needn’t look at them — they 
are not listening, they are all taken up with their own 
petty frivolities. Joan, I never realized the truth until 
this minute. I saw it in your eyes. You needn’t at- 
tempt to deny it — you can’t deceive me, Joan ; you are 
making a big mistake. There is some question of honour 
that sways you. I know it — I feel it. I have felt it all 
along. You don’t care twopence-ha’penny about 
Moresby.” 

'' I do,” said Joan. '' I feel I am not half good enough 
for him. I — I did care for him — oh, I did, believe me — 
and then I took a wrong idea in my head. I thought 
it was that he didn’t care for me.” 

When?” 

“ That time when we were at Rockborough. You 
remember I got a letter from him — I — he didn’t like to 

311 


LITTLE JOAN 


hold me to my promise, thought it wasn’t really a 
promise. He felt that he would never be able to make 
a home that he could ask me to share, and I wrote and 
set him absolutely free, even from the implied promise 
that we had made to each other. And then he came in 
for the title and the money — life was all changed, every- 
thing was different. Oh, I can’t talk about it.” 

You must talk about it,” he rejoined in the same 
fierce whisper. You must talk about it. Do you sup- 
pose I am going to keep silent when my life is hanging 
in the balance? What is such a tie? If he were poor 
and you cast him off, it would be another thing; but he 
is rich; any girl in England would be proud to marry 
him. He’s — he’s a great catch ; a much greater catch 
than I am, Joan. And yet, if you love me the best — 
ah, it’s too hideous to think of your marrying anyone 
but me.” 

I — I must,” said Joan, with a gasp, “ I must. You 
don’t understand. I — I — oh, don’t talk to me any more 
now. You mustn’t.” 

Later on,” said he. 

“ No, no ; not at all. There’s nothing to be done. 
We must dree our weird.” 

“ I won’t dree my weird. I swear to you that you 
shall not marry Moresby without his knowing the truth, 
and the whole truth. When will you see me ?” 

‘‘ When can I see you ? He’s staying here in the 
house — he’s always here. I’m never free for one mo- 
ment.” 


312 


MASTERS GRASPS THE TRUTH 


“ Come down to the Winter Garden to-morrow.” 

“ No, no ; it’s impossible. If I stir out of the house 
he naturally asks where I am going and mayn’t he 
come, too.” 

Does he go to church with you ?” 

“ No, he never goes to church.” 

Then, you come into the Winter Garden instead of 
going to church. They’ll not miss you. The day after 
to-morrow. You’ll come in the morning. You can go 
in quite late, and nobody will know that you haven’t 
been there all the time. It isn’t like an ordinary church, 
since you always go to the Parish — no, don’t come to 
the Winter Garden ; it will be closed. I’ve a better idea. 
I’ll meet you in the north aisle — in the north transept, 
behind Archbishop Leng’s tombstone — you know. 
Now, you won’t fail me? If you do, I shall have no 
choice but to acquaint Moresby with everything that 
has passed between us.” 

“ Nothing has passed,” said Joan, “ nothing has 
passed between us excepting that you asked me to 
marry you, and I told you I couldn’t. I told you there 
was someone else.” 

You never told me that you loved someone else.” 
His voice was tenderness itself, his eyes all eloquence. 

“ Please,” said Joan, in a little pitiful voice, please 
don’t say any more now. I’ll come Sunday morning. 
I’ll be there at a quarter past eleven. Don’t wait about 
for me. Go right out of sight, behind the Archbishop’s 
tomb — I’ll come.” 


313 


LITTLE JOAN 


She was true to her word. Afterwards she wondered 
how she had ever lived through that evening and the 
whole of the following day, lived almost entirely in 
Moresby’s society, lived with that persuasive voice ring- 
ing in her ears, those eloquent eyes pleading for the 
life of love. And yet, so well did she play her part that 
Moresby discovered nothing. He tried hard on the 
Sunday morning to persuade her not to go to church 
— he almost decided to go himself, then remembered 
that he had a long letter to write to his lawyers, which 
he had promised should reach the London office early 
on Monday morning. 

“ I would go, darling,” he said, but I have got to 
write an awfully long letter all about settlements and 
things, that they can’t arrange without me. What a 
nuisance these lawyer fellows are !” 

“ Now, you mustn’t speak against lawyer fellows 
here,” said she. 

“ No, no ; not at all. But charming as your father is 
in his private capacity, I am quite sure he can be most 
aggravating as a lawyer. And the worst of it is,” he 
added, quaintly, ‘‘ the better lawyer the man is, the 
more irritating from a client’s point of view. So you 
see, dear, if I go to church with you I shall have to 
write that letter in the afternoon, and I don’t feel in- 
clined to do that. Besides, when a man has been in the 
service as long as I have, he kind of feels a prescribed 
right to stay away from church parade Sunday morn- 
ing.” 


314 


MASTERS GRASPS THE TRUTH 


So Joan, who was purposely rather late, set off alone 
in the wake of her two sisters and Willy. Mr. Delamere 
had started a quarter of an hour before, he always pre- 
ferring to take time on the road, speak to many people 
as he went, and sit for ten minutes in his accustomed 
corner of the big pew meditating before the beginning 
of the service. 

And that morning Joan was late. It was, indeed, just 
a quarter past eleven when she passed in under the 
great north doorway, which was not a much used en- 
trance, the majority of people entering by the southern 
or the western doors. Not a soul was in sight, not so 
much as a single verger crept along the wide white 
pavement, so Joan, instead of going straight across to 
the side aisle by which late-comers could enter the 
choir, turned sharply to the left, and the next moment 
had joined Sir Robert Masters in his place of conceal- 
ment behind the Archbishop's tomb. 

“ I ought not to have come," she said as they met. 

“ Oh, yes, you ought. It’s your only chance of talk- 
ing things squarely over with me, Joan. It’s absolutely 
imperative that we do talk things squarely over. You 
don’t seem to realize that.’’ 

“ I don’t think I realize anything,’’ said Joan, ex- 
cepting that I have made a complete muddle of my life 
and yours.’’ 

“ You bid fair to do so,’’ said he ; but the mischief 
is not done yet. Oh, Joan, don’t go and do this hideous 
thing. It’s hideous for a woman to give herself to one 

315 


LITTLE JOAN 


man when her heart belongs to another. I should have 
spoken out before if I had been absolutely sure, but 
you have held me off so. You almost made me believe 
that you cared for Moresby more than you do for me 
— and yet, do you know, I don’t think you ever quite 
made me believe that; but there were times when I 
wasn’t sure — dead sure — how you felt with regard to 
him. Why did you take him when you knew that I 
loved you, and you knew that you loved me?” 

‘‘ Because,” said Joan, in a very small and pitiful 
voice, “ because I thought that you had not been very 
sure of yourself. I was ashamed to care so much — I 
mean to think so much of a man who seemed to be so 
easily consoled. You have been a great deal with 
Aggie, you know.” 

With your sister Aggie ? Oh, no. In the sense 
that I have talked to her — yes, but talked to her about 
what ? About you.” 

‘‘About me?” 

“ Of course. What other topic of conversation should 
we have? I take no interest in her; she takes less in 
me. But she’s no fool, that sister of yours ; she knows 
the lay of the land well enough. She knows where your 
heart is. She said it all along.” 

“ Agnes had no possible right ” Joan began. 

“ No, she had no right ; but everybody has a right to 
see the truth, everybody has a right to use the eyes that 
were given to them, and to use them to see truth as well 
as what they were only intended to see. You mustn’t 

316 


MASTERS GRASPS THE TRUTH 


blame Agnes— she’s been your best friend. It will be 
difficult, Joan, oh, it will be very difficult. We shall 
have to make a clean breast of it to Moresby.” 

And,” said Joan, '' if we do that we shall have to 
leave the final decision to him.” 

“ I don’t see it — I can’t see it. Moresby is a gentle- 
man. He wouldn’t hold a woman to a promise given 
under a misapprehension, he wouldn’t wish for a wife 
whose heart belonged irrevocably to another man. 
You wrong him.” 

I must,” said Joan, “ leave the choice to him if — 
if I make up my mind to tell him at all.” 

“ There’s no question of making up your mind. If 
you don’t tell him, I shall. If you marry him, you must 
marry him after answering one straight question. Oh, 
Joan, I know it will be an awful moment for you, it will 
be an awful wrench — yes, yes, an awful wrench. But 
you will get over it, you will win through. The honest 
course is the best course all the world over. If I were 
in Moresby’s place, I’d rather, fifty times fifty times, 
know the exact truth than live in a fool’s paradise from 
which I might awake at any moment.” 

“ But all this,” said Joan, “ does not in the least exon- 
erate me.” 

Perhaps not, perhaps yes. At all events, while 
your eyes tell me what they told me the other evening, 
it doesn’t much matter what your lips say. I wonder 
Moresby never found out the truth.” 

It was on the tip of Joan’s tongue to say that he 
317 


LITTLE JOAN 


had more than once been within an ace of guessing it. 
Then a sense of what was due in honour to the man 
who held her promise choked the words upon her lips. 

“ I — I must go now,” she said. I have been here 
long enough.” 

Joan,” said he, '' you have not yet told me the 
truth, you have not yet owned that I am right.” 

“ You said,” returned Joan, “ that it did not matter 
what one’s lips said so long as one’s eyes spoke the 
truth.” 


318 


CHAPTER XXXIX 


A Pretty Fix 

“ T T THERE is Joan ?” said Mr. Delamere, looking 
V V down the long table. 

I don’t know, Dad,” Violet answered. 

Have you seen her, Agnes ?” 

“ No, I haven’t seen her this morning — that is, I saw 
her this morning at breakfast, of course, but I haven’t 
seen her since church-time. Have you, Ozzie?” 

I haven’t seen her since just before she went off 
to church. I didn’t know she was in ; but then I’ve 
been writing letters. I don’t like writing letters,” he 
added, “ so I thought as I’d begun I’d make a clean 
sweep of all I ought to do, and then I should be free 
for a week or so.” 

Oh, I’ll go and see where she is. Perhaps she’s not 
very well,” put in Agnes, hastily. 

She laid down her serviette and pushed back her 
chair, going out of the room without another word. She 
ran quickly up the wide shallow stairs and knocked at 
the door of Joan’s room. There was no response. Joan, 
open the door,” she said. It is I — Agnes.” 

“ Go away,” said Joan’s voice from within. “ I don’t 
feel well, dear. Go away. I don’t want any lunch.” 

“ Do let me in, Joan.” 


319 


LITTLE JOAN 


‘‘ No, no. Please don’t worry me. I’m lying down. 
I don’t want any lunch, I tell you.” 

So Agnes went back again to the dining-room. 
'' Joan isn’t very well,” she said. '' She’s lying down 
with a headache. She doesn’t want any lunch. Don’t 
worry her.” 

“ I had a sort of feeling she ought not to go to church 
this morning,” said Moresby. 

“ Neither did she,” said Mr. Delamere. 

'' She didn’t go to church ?” 

No, she was not in church.” 

“ Oh, really. I thought she told me she was going 
to church, that was all.” 

Then Agnes plunged headlong into the conversation, 
turning it into another channel, and no more was said 
about Joan’s indisposition. Twice Agnes went up to 
the door of her sister’s room, and twice Joan declared 
that she was all right and only wanted to be let alone. 
At tea-time, however, Agnes positively insisted on the 
door being opened. 

“ Joan,” she said, if you don’t open the door I 
shall fetch Moresby upstairs, and I’m sure you don’t 
want that. I have brought you some tea, and I’m here 
by myself. OpeA the door immediately.” 

There was a moment’s silence. Then she heard 
the sound of the key turning in the lock, the door 
opened and Joan stood before her. Agnes went quickly 
in, closing the door and locking it behind her. 

^^Joan,” she said, putting her hand on her sister’s 


320 


A PRETTY FIX 


shoulder when she had set down the tray upon the 
table by the bed,-^‘ I want to know what is the matter/^ 
Nothing that you can help,” said Joan, averting her 
eyes. 

“ Nonsense. I can help it perhaps more than you 
think. What has happened this morning to you? 
Come, you may as well tell me. IVe got to know. 
Something very terrible has come into your life — I 
know it, I’ve felt it all along. Have you and Robert 
Masters come to an explanation?” 

For a moment Joan stood irresolute. Then she broke 
down, and, hiding her face with her hands, sobbed as 
if her heart would break. 

“ It’s no use crying like that, darling,” said Agnes, 
speaking very firmly. “ It’s no use crying like that. 
The worst has come to the worst — I knew it would, I 
knew it all along. You have made a mistake. I don’t 
know what made you make it, because all along you 
have loved Robert Masters the best of the two.” 

'‘How did you know?” cried Joan between her 
sobs. 

“ How did I know ? Child, do you think that I have 
eyes in my head? Do you think that I go about like 
a mole, and don’t see things that are happening under 
my very nose? Pray, don’t let there be any mistake. 
You have promised yourself to Ozzie Mainwaring and 
your heart is breaking for Robert Masters. Don’t let 
it break. You couldn’t do such a wicked thing to a 
man as to marry him when your heart was full of love 

321 


21 


LITTLE JOAN 


for another. He wouldn’t wish it. You have come to 
an understanding with Sir Robert, haven’t you ?” 

“ Yes, I suppose I have,” said Joan, “ I suppose I 
have.” 

“You suppose? Don’t you know? Come, now, Joan, 
it’s no use beating about the bush any longer. It’s simply 
this — Ozzie Mainwaring has got to be told.” 

“ But who is to tell him ?” cried Joan, almost in a 
wail. 

“Who is to tell him? Well, I admit it is rather an 
awkward thing. Don’t you think you could bring your- 
self to do it?” 

“ No, I don’t,” said Joan. “ I don’t pretend that I 
can. I can’t. I’ve behaved like a beast to him. I 
should think when he knows everything, he will be 
thoroughly glad to be rid of me.” 

“ Not he. And yet,” and here Agnes pulled herself 
up sharp, “ and yet, perhaps he might. Men are so 
sensible in some situations of life. Anyway, he wouldn’t 
thank you to marry him without telling him the truth, 
that is quite certain.” 

“ No, I suppose not,” said Joan, wearily. 

“ Well, now, look here,” Agnes went on briskly, “ you 
are feeling pretty bad over it just now, and I really can’t 
wonder, but you can’t be allowed to wreck your life for 
the sake of a mere idea — a shibboleth — that would be 
too foolish for words, and you wouldn’t deserve to be 
happy afterwards if you did. Meantime, supposing that 
you drink the tea I have brought you. Come, you 

3 ?^ * 


A PRETTY FIX 


mustn’t let yourself get run down — that can serve no 
purpose ; neither man will want a starving shadow.” 

By dint of coaxing and half chaffing she succeeded in 
getting Joan to drink a cup of tea and to choke down 
a bit of bread and butter, and then she persuaded her to 
lie down again while she bathed her forehead with eau 
de cologne and covered her over with the silken eider- 
down. She then returned to the lower part of the house, 
going to the drawing-room, where tea was in full swing. 

“ Is she better ?” asked several voices at once. 

“ Oh, yes, she’s better, but she’s got a very bad head- 
ache. Don’t worry about her. She’s had some tea,” 
Agnes replied. She took her own tea from Violet, and 
was carrying it across to the other side of the room 
when Moresby intercepted her. 

Is Joan really ill ?” he asked. 

“ She’s got a very bad headache, Ozzie,” she replied. 

I’ll talk to you about it later on.” 

Something in her tone made him turn and look 
strangely at her; but Agnes was not to be drawn into 
any discussion just then and immediately passed on to 
where David Molyneux was sitting. 

David,” she said, in an undertone, “ I’m in the most 
awful fix that ever poor creature was in this world.” 

Why, what has happened ?” 

'' Oh, I don’t know how to tell you. In brief, all that 
I told you yesterday I suspected is absolutely a fact. 
Joan has got herself engaged to Ozzie Mainwaring— 
whom she used to be awfully fond of, mind — and all the 


323 


LITTLE JOAN 


time she’s absolutely wrapped up in Sir Robert. 
They’ve come to some sort of an explanation this morn- 
ing — when and where I don’t exactly know, but some 
sort of an explanation — and she’s up there crying her 
eyes out, and looks like a ghost.” 

‘‘ The devil !” said he. “ I — I — beg your pardon. I 
didn’t mean to say that, but really it is the devil, isn’t 
it?” 

“ Well, it is,” said Agnes. “ This is just the question 
— somebody will have to break it to Ozzie. Who is 
that somebody to be ? I don’t feel inclined to do it.” 

You’d rather do it than let your sister ” 

Oh, yes, I would. But still, David, you will admit 
it will take some grit to start, won’t it?” 

"‘Yes, I suppose it will. I’d no idea that Joan was 
changeable.” 

“ She isn’t. This is just the truth : Ozzie went away ; 
he made love to Joan for years — yes, he did — and Joan, 
poor dear, hadn’t the strength of mind to say: ‘Well, 
you’re no good. You are just taking advantage of me,’ 
as she might have done, and as indeed she ought to 
have done. Poor Joan, she was wrapped up in him. 
And then from what I can gather, and from what few 
words she let out just now, I think when he found how 
dead poor they were likely to be, he wanted to cry off. 
Well, Joan was only too thankful to cry off, and she at 
once set him free. Meantime she had formed a splendid 
estimate of Robert Masters’s character, in which I think 
she was perfectly right ; and when Ozzie suddenly came 


324 


A PRETTY FIX 


home Lord Moresby, fifty thousand a year, and all the 
rest of it, she was so taken aback that she didn’t like 
to say no.” 

“ But what about Masters ?” 

‘^Well, do you know it was really very stupid, but I 
gather — mind you, she didn’t tell me exactly — but I 
gather that she had an idea that Robert Masters was 
thinking about me. Now, the poor fellow has never had 
a thought but for Joan in his life, and it was not until 
you and I got engaged that she realized that Robert 
and I were nothing more than friends and would-be 
brother and sister. Now he has spoken out, and I 
think she’s in that position that she simply doesn’t know 
which way to turn.” 

Well, of course Moresby’s got to be told,” said he, 
having but scant pity for a man in Moresby’s particular 
circumstances. 

“Yes; but who’s to bell the cat? Joan says she can’t; 
Robert says if she doesn’t, he will ; and I’ve left her 
thinking I’m going to do it.” 

“You? Well, I should think you would be a very 
likely person to do it.” 

“ Oh, David, how horrid of you ! Of course. I’ll have 
to do it if the worst comes to the worst ; but think what 
a horrid thing for any girl to have to do, particularly 
when I know it’s mostly my fault and that Robert Mas- 
ters has been encouraged by me all along.” 

“ Oh, then you haven’t carried on with Robert Mas- 
ters?” 


325 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ Never in my life. He confided all his trouble to me 
months and months ago, before I ever set eyes on you 
— in fact, it was through me it came about. I told him 
that Joan was miserable in her engagement, and she 
seems to have mistaken our intimacy, and other people, 
too ; they are so silly in this place — they have an idea 
that if a man or woman speak to each other that they 
must be making love; they can’t even be talking about 
the love-affairs of others. It makes me wild !” 

“ Yes, I can quite understand that. But still, Moresby 
ought to be told without delay. It isn’t fair to keep 
the chap here — particularly under the same roof — a 
single hour without his being enlightened to the very 
fullest extent.” 

“ Oh, I know that. I am prepared to do it — only I 
really do feel such a hesitancy. I never felt so sick about 
anything in my life. Oh, how unlucky Joan has been ! 
Really, I haven’t very much pity for Moresby. Besides, 
he’s very rich now, and he’s very good-looking, and he 
can easily find somebody else when he’s got over this a 
little. But it’s such a cold-blooded thing to do, isn’t 
it?” 

“ Well, it is that — yes,” he replied. Then a bright 
thought struck him. “ Look here, Aggie,” he said, “ I 
don’t like putting myself forward, but, at the same time, 
if you particularly wish it I’ll go and find Moresby, and, 
as man to man. I’ll tell him exactly what has happened.” 

“ Oh, David, David,” said she, “ if ever a saint trod 
the earth, I think you are one!” 

326 


CHAPTER XL 


The only Way Out 

ITH David Molyneux to decide was to act. He 



left Agnes at the foot of the stairs, Agnes turn- 


ing and flying back to the upper floor as if she were pos- 
sessed of some demon. 

David went straight into the morning-room, where 
he knew Moresby was. Violet and Willy Delamere were 
there, and another young man who was an ardent ad- 
mirer of ViolePs. 

“ Moresby,'’ said David to him, as soon as he could 
speak without attracting attention, “ it’s very stuffy in- 
doors to-day.” 

“ Do you think so ?” said Moresby. 

“ Y<',s, I do. Come outside and smoke. There’s a 
nice little arbour down by the river,” he added. “We 
can smoke there without disturbing anybody.” 

“ I didn’t know that smoking in this house ever dis- 
turbed anybody,” said Moresby, in rather a grumbling 
tone. 

“ Never mind. Come out.” 

He was so much impressed by the younger man’s 
manner that he obeyed him without any further demur. 
When they reached the hall, however, he hesitated. 

“ Agnes said she would go and see how Joan was 
getting on,” he said. 


327 


LITTLE JOAN 


“ She's been. Joan is rather better. I just saw her,” 
David Molyneux replied. 

The two men walked down the garden together. It 
was rather dreary than otherwise, for the flower-beds 
were bare and bleak, and there was not a leaf upon the 
trees with the exception of the evergreens which skirted 
the lawns. 

“ Now, I regard this as one of the best and most 
sheltered spots in Blankhampton,” said David, as they 
turned into the summer-house on the terrace. 

“Yes, it's a nice little place,'' Moresby replied. To 
him the little shelter was redolent of all the romance of 
his life ; the walls spoke to him of Joan, the rustic seats 
seemed still to have a touch of her upon them ; being 
midwinter, the cushions which were always there in 
summer time had been stowed away in the house, but 
still there was a feeling of Joan about the place, a feel- 
ing of romance, a thrilling sense of her personality. 

“ Now, look here, Moresby,” said David, plunging 
headlong into the subject as only a very young man 
could, “ I didn't bring you out here to smoke the pipe 
of peace or the cigarette of gentility. I have got some- 
thing to tell you.” 

“To tell me?” Moresby's tone was faintly surprised. 

“ Look here, old fellow, if you had to take a facer, 
would you take it straight or would you have it broken 
to you?” 

“ I'd take it straight,” said Moresby. “ But what 
facer can you have to give me?” 

328 


THE ONLY WAY OUT 


^A/ ell, I’m afraid, old chap. Eve got an awful facer 
for you. The real truth is, Joan is very unhappy. I 
don’t know what you and she were to each other in by- 
gone days, but there was some sort of an affair between 
you.” 

Well?” Moresby had turned white to his very lips, 
and he sat down upon the broad ledge which formed the 
window-sill of the shelter and grasped one of the 
wooden supports of the roof with which to steady him- 
self. Only the strained white skin over his knuckles 
showed how nervous he was. 

“ There was some sort of an affair between you,” 
went on David. As far as I can gather from Agnes, 
the situation lies simply in this : You went away leaving 
Joan free, and remaining free yourself. She had no 
communication with you, and another man fell in love 
with her.” 

Another man — another man fell in love with her ?” 

It is not unlikely, old fellow, that another man 
would do what you had done. Anyway, he did. He 
proposed to Joan, and Joan, although in the ordinary 
course of events she would have accepted him, refused 
him because she did not feel herself to be absolutely 
free. Just at that time, or a few weeks later, she had 
a letter from you in which, practically, you put a final 
end to any implied promise that there might have been 
on either side. Joan accepted this situation, but before 
she could hear from you, you turned up with a title, 
with untold wealth, and you laid them at her feet. Now, 


329 


LITTLE JOAN 


the simple truth is this : Joan is breaking her heart for 
the other man. She refuses to throw you over, or even 
to tell you herself how she feels, but Agnes and I and 
the man feel that it is your right to know. Joan leaves 
the decision to you. If you insist, I mean to say if 
you wish that she should carry out her engagement 
with you, she will do so.” 

“ And if I set her free ?” 

“ Then she will marry the other man at once. I am 
sure, Moresby, you will — you will feel in any case that 
I have done the right thing in coming to you. Aggie 
promised to do it, but she was so upset and so dis- 
tressed about the whole thing that I volunteered to do 
it in her stead. For my own part, I am free to confess 
that if I had to take a facer like that. I’d rather take 
it from a man than from a woman. I hope you’ll — 
you’ll ” 

“Oh, put all that away,” said Moresby. “You 
needn’t apologise to me, David. I — I think it is very 
good of you to have bothered at all. The main fact 
is that the whole thing is my own fault. I ought to 
have read between the lines when I came back and she 
wasn’t willing to be married right out of hand. She 
loved me when I went away, and I — well, I gave her 
the impression that I did not love her well enough to 
risk poverty. She had never known poverty — I had 
never known anything else. I — I mistook her. Look 
here, old fellow. I’ll — I’ll go. Would you see my man 
when he comes in and ask him to get my things all 

330 


THE ONLY WAY OUT 


packed up and follow me to London — my own cham- 
bers in St. James’s?” 

“ And Joan ? You don’t want to see her ?” 

I — I think on the whole I’d rather not,” said 
Moresby. “ It will be harrowing to her feelings and 
most repugnant to mine. The main fact is enough for 
me. She — she has — I won’t say she’s changed her 
mind. I don’t want to abuse the one woman in the world 
that I would give everything I have to call my own. 
She has grown out of the old feelings ; I daresay it is 
natural enough. Would you do me the favour, David, 
to give her my love and to tell her I would rather she 
were happy in her own way? She needn’t worry about 
me — I suppose I shall get over this after a time. If I 
don’t — well, there’s no reason for three to be wretched, 
as we would have been if I had held her to her promise. 
Do ask her not to send me back the odds and ends I 
have given her. I always think that is so dreadful. I’d 
rather she would keep them to remind her that, although 
perhaps I didn’t care for her in just the way that she 
would have preferred me to care for her, yet I was very 
faithful according to my lights.” 

'' I will attend to it all,” said David. 

He was very considerate, this boy. Like all inconse- 
quent people, he was extraordinarily delicate about the 
feelings of others. I don’t know whether you have ever 
noticed, my reader, that light-hearted, almost feather- 
brained, people often skate over thin ice which would 
break under the firmer and more solid tread of a wiser 


331 


LITTLE JOAN 


nature. He was apparently engrossed in tying knots 
in a bit of twine, and never once looked at Moresby, 
who was still sitting on the ledge of the shelter, holding 
the support firmly by one hand. 

“ If you will stay down here,” Moresby went on, Til 
go up and get my coat and so on, and Fll go out without 
saying good-bye to anybody. I’d rather, I never could 
stand pity of any kind, and I don’t want to see Agnes 
or any of them. Give me ten minutes’ start and then 
I shall be all right. You can tell them why.” 

He stood up and gave himself the characteristic shake 
of the army man, straightened his shoulders, flung his 
head in the air, and then held out a strong, firm hand 
to David. 

“ Good-bye, old chap. I take it awfully kindly of you 
to have broken this to me so straight and so decently. 
I shall never forget you. I hope you will be awfully 
happy in your marriage.” 

“ And I hope,” said David, that one of these days 
you will meet some girl who will make you feel that 
all the rest of your life has been mere dust and ashes, 
and that ” 

No, you needn’t tell me, thanks. I know. If I do, 
I will write to you, David, at once, and I’ll honestly 
tell you if I find happiness.” 

He gripped David’s hand again, and then, turning, 
went out of the summer-house. 

“ There goes a fine chap, but he took her the wrong 
way,” David Molyneux’s thoughts ran. Yes, he took 


332 


THE ONLY WAY OUT 


her the wrong way. It comes, exactly as he said, of 
the fact that she has never known poverty and he has 
never known anything else.’’ 

He did not go into the house until he had finished his 
pipe, and that took a good deal longer time than ten 
minutes. Then he went slowly up the deserted garden 
paths, and, knocking the ashes out of his pipe at the 
hall door, he went into the house. The party in the 
morning-room had been augmented by several young 
people. Agnes had come down, and was one of the gay 
group by the fire. Some expression on her fiance's face 
made her leave the circle and go to the great arch of 
the bay window. 

‘‘ Have you told him ?” she asked, almost in a whis- 
per. 

Yes, I told him. He’s gone.” 

‘"Gone! Left for good? Is it all over?” 

“Yes, all over. He took it splendidly. Mind you, 
it was a facer. I — I never felt such sympathy with a 
chap in my life.” 

“And his things?” 

“ Oh, he’s given me instructions about them. I’ve 
got a message for Joan.” 

“ Well, you had better come up to her room and give 
it to her.” 

She led the way across the hall and up the wide 
stairs. 

“ Joan, can we come in ?” she asked. 

“Who is it?” asked Joan. 


333 


LITTLE JOAN 

“ It’s only David and 1. David has a message for 
you.” 

She beckoned to David to enter the room, and he 
found Joan sitting in a big basket chair in front of the 
fire, her face very wan and tear-stained, her whole air 
that of a woman crushed by dire grief. Then, standing 
up quite straight and soldier-like, David delivered his 
message word for word. 

There was a long silence. Did he ask ?” Joan 

began. 

“ He asked nothing, and I did not tell him who the 
other man was, if that is what you mean.” 

Sir Robert is coming up the drive,” said Agnes. 

“ I can’t see him,” said Joan. “ Go down — send him 
away. I can’t see him.” 

'' You — you are not going to break with both of them 
— you are not going to be foolish?” said Agnes in a 
frightened voice. 

“ Oh, no, that would be foolish indeed. But I couldn’t 
see him just now. Tell him to go to town for a few 
days. I’ll see him when he comes back again.” 

POSTSCRIPTUM 

On February i, at the Cathedral, Blankhampton, by 
the Very Reverend the Dean, Sir Robert Masters, Baro- 
net, to Joan, third daughter of Robert Delamere, of 
Riverside, Blankhampton. 

THE END 


334 


















I 


OCT 27 





1903 


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